Allium 2011

[TheOnionMan]

Forgot to ask about this one in the summer, received as Allium rubens:

Stephen, it might be right, foliage is certainly narrow enough.  Some decriptions say "few flowered" although others say the density of the inflorescence is variable,  The ones I grew had few-flowered one-sided umbels, but many photos show open hemispherical heads similar to what you show.  Here are some photo links to compare:

Allium rubens in AsianFlora:
http://www.asianflora.com/Alliaceae/Allium-rubens.htm

Stephen, you're going to like the following link.
Scroll down past the stuffed onions (these look good!), Allium rubens and A. stellerianum are shown together, they both look right.
http://blogs.privet.ru/community/rastenia_riadom/tags/158671

Another couple of images, more globular heads:
http://www.biologie.uni-osnabrueck.de/bogos/Projekte/Pflanzenportraets/Site/Allium_rubens.html
http://www.agroatlas.ru/en/content/related/Allium_rubens/

A drawing I did from my plants of Allium rubens:
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/RhizomatousAlliums

[TheOnionMan]

What did G.A.R.L.I.C. stand for? Do you still have the newsletter? Would be interesting to see one 

Did you name your daughters after Alliums? Amethyst, perhaps (Amy for short?)

S.

Well, it was an acronymic stretch, but G.A.R.L.I.C. stood for "Growing Alliums & Related Liliaceae In Cultivation" (haha), remembering that Liliaceae was the family Allium was ascribed to at the time.  The newsletter only lasted for ~3 years. 

My two daughters were given normal non-alliaceous names

[olegKon]

A nice drawing, Mark.
I followed the link a found Allium tuvinicum. Are you sure the Tuva region is in Mongolia? I'm not a specialist in Mongolian geography but we have a region with the same name in Russia

[TheOnionMan]

Oleg, you are correct about Tuva, for which Allium tuvinicum is named.  The species, A. tuvinicum, occurs in Tuva, Russia, and in nearby Mongolia, where it is more widely distributed than in Russia.  I think the confusion came in from the fact the species is named for Tuva area, yet the species is largely considered a Mongolian species from its wider distribution.  I went into the Pacific Bulb Society wiki and clarified the language.   Here are some links on this allium species.

The Virtual Guide to the Flora of Mongolia, a wonderful botanical resource:
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/floragreif/?flora_search=Record&record_id=11583
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/floragreif/?flora_search=Record&fam=&gen=Allium&spec=tuvinicum

distribution map:
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/floragreif/?flora_search=Taxon&taxon_id=2026

Checking wikipedia, parts of Tuva region were controlled by the Mongols from 1207 to 1757; so Tuva was practically Mongolian for 5-1/2 centuries. The area certainly has an interesting history.

[Stephenb]

Stephen, you're going to like the following link.
Scroll down past the stuffed onions (these look good!), Allium rubens and A. stellerianum are shown together, they both look right.
http://blogs.privet.ru/community/rastenia_riadom/tags/158671

You must be referring to the unusually attractive onion fancier on that page 

Anyway, thanks for the links - I had found your drawing; another talent!

[Stephenb]

Well, it was an acronymic stretch, but G.A.R.L.I.C. stood for "Growing Alliums & Related Liliaceae In Cultivation" (haha), remembering that Liliaceae was the family Allium was ascribed to at the time.  The newsletter only lasted for ~3 years. 

Like it 

[Stephenb]

The Virtual Guide to the Flora of Mongolia, a wonderful botanical resource:
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/floragreif/?flora_search=Record&record_id=11583
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/floragreif/?flora_search=Record&fam=&gen=Allium&spec=tuvinicum

Truly an excellent resource - thanks, Mark - wish I'd had it when I was reading up about wild gathered edibles in Mongolia a few months back!!

[wmel]

It has been a warm december here. We only had one frost-day in december (-0.1oC). How different it was one year ago when we had a lot of ice and almost al of december frost.
A lot of allium bulbs are getting green already, as you can see in the posted photo's, and also some seeds are comming out......

[TheOnionMan]

My goodness Wietse, they are coming up like grass!  It's hard to imagine all the work that goes into preparing such beds each year, on such a grand scale    Do you sterilize the soil so that the beds are not infiltrated with the fallen seed of other species?

While we've had more than our fair share of mild weather, colder weather and deep frosts have arrived too, today was sunny but the high temperature was 25 F (-4 C) and night temperature 12 F (-11 C), and the ground feels solidly frozen.

[Stephenb]

This year's Xmas tree in Malvik.....has an Alliaceous flavour with the Xmas fairy replaced by a Xmas onion. Which one? Season's greetings to all onion fans...

[TheOnionMan]

This year's Xmas tree in Malvik.....has an Alliaceous flavour with the Xmas fairy replaced by a Xmas onion. Which one? Season's greetings to all onion fans...

One of the giant-headed alliums, probably A. schubertii.  What are the small dark "ornaments" haging from the allium pedicels?

[Stephenb]

Correct! A. schubertii!

The dark ornaments are dried plums. A play on words as light bulbs in Norwegian are lyspære (light-pears), so these are light-plums, but not very bright   Oh, well....

You can also see red chilis and the tree is a Brazilian Monkey Puzzle...

[olegKon]

Mark. Thanks for the very interesting link about Mongolian flora

[TheOnionMan]

Mark. Thanks for the very interesting link about Mongolian flora

My pleasure Oleg, I wish all countries had such a well implemented on-line Flora.  I like how you can find herbarium specimen views of many species, illustrative distribution maps, taxa descriptions, discussion about similar or related taxa, etc.  I discovered the site when trying to key some Alliums and other plants that Panayotio Kelaidis photographed on his Mongolian botanic tour two years ago.

[wmel]

My goodness Wietse, they are coming up like grass!  It's hard to imagine all the work that goes into preparing such beds each year, on such a grand scale    Do you sterilize the soil so that the beds are not infiltrated with the fallen seed of other species?
While we've had more than our fair share of mild weather, colder weather and deep frosts have arrived too, today was sunny but the high temperature was 25 F (-4 C) and night temperature 12 F (-11 C), and the ground feels solidly frozen.

It is a lot of work indeed, but that is ofcourse what we do for living (a part of). This year was a little different than before, because in the last years we had about 40-45m2 of allium seeds every year, but this year almost 300m2!.
We are never sowing seeds in soil where has been alliums the year before, and even if we did; the chance is very little that other species grow in between the one's we sow, because the soil is plought 30 cm every year and when we do not collect allium seeds we remove the flowers before they produce seeds. We do not use chemicals with growing allium, only some to reduce the weeds growing to fast. In the first and second year of the seeds we remove al weed by hand, and believe me... that is a lot of work!
The seeds are harvested the first time after 2 growing seasons, what we sow last november is going to be harvested in 2013 the first time. We post again some photo's when there is something more to see.