PBS Forum

I have recently discovered two small plants (~8" tall) blooming in my front yard wildflower bed which I cannot identify and do not remember planting. The bed has been established for roughly 25 years and is never disturbed except for weeding and trimming. The first photo shows the single leaf. which has asymmetrical veining.  My guess is Ornithogalum but I haven't seen a perfect match in the WIKI file.

I was a member of IBS and tried growing some Ornithogalum seeds years ago — O. longibracteatum and O. juncifolium. I did not record having any success with them.

North Florida  — mild winter, normal rainfall, last freeze was in early January.


Melanie Darst

Ornithogalums don't have umbels like that. Amaryllidaceae have. Best guess from my side's an Allium - which you can probably verify with your nose.

Oh, and since that's your first post: welcome to the forum!

Yes, Allium is better. I have two in that area, A. canadense and A. mobilense -- both are taller and the leaves are narrower. 

Hi, I'd say Allium neapolitanum, an European species with green anthers.

I have a quick and easy method for telling allium and ornithogalum apart, which is smell: if you break a tiny bit of a leaf, allium smells of...well...garlic, while ornithogalum smells of...grass.

There are a few other plants in Allioideae which smell of garlic, too - Tulbaghia and Ipheion would come in mind here.

Well of course, but there's no way you can mistake those for Ornithogalum. Maybe just a whitish Ipheion

I could as well say you can't mistake any flowering ornithogalum for an allium and vice versa - even Ornithogalum umbellatum

has no umbel but a very short-squashed spike. But that argument is like hoping people on Inat would finally understand that anything with six anthers can never be a crocus.

I think they are Allium neapolitanum. The leaves didn't have any odor, but there was only one leaf apiece and I didn't want to strip the plants. Other than that, it's a good fit.