Image of Allium roseum L.

Description:

Slo.: ronati luk - Habitat: close to Adriatic Sea shore; bushy, semiruderal ground on the shore of a small lake, flat terrain, cretaceous clastic rock (flysh) bedrock; moist place; exposed to direct rain; elevation 5 m (16 feet); average precipitations 1.000-1.100 mm/year, average temperature 12-14 deg C, submediterranean phytogeographical region. Comment: We all know onions and garlic (genus Allium) from our kitchens. But few know how these plants bloom and whether or how many brothers and sisters they have in their botanical genus. In Slovenia we have 25 different species of this genus growing in wild. Flowers of almost all of them are beautiful. Allium roseum is not an exception. It is a common Mediterranean plant growing all around the Mediterranean Sea, but it is quite rare in my country growing exclusively in extreme southwest part of the state near Adriatic Sea shore on flysh ground of Istria peninsula. Flowers of the inflorescence of Allium roseum are arranged in a half-spherical umbel (inflorescence with the pedicels arising +/- from a common point, like the struts of an umbrella), which can have up to 7 cm in diameter and may contain up to 35 tenderly pink or sometimes almost white individual flowers. In many cases also some bulbils are intermixed in the head. Ref.:(1) M. Blamey, C. Grey-Wilson, Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean, A & C Black, London (2005), p 485.(2) I. Schnfelder, P. Schnfelder, Kosmos Atlas Mittelmeer- und Kanarenflora, Kosmos, (2002), p 54.(3) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007), p 743. (4) N. Jogan (ed.), Gradivo za Atlas flore Slovenije (Materials for the Atlas of Flora of Slovenia), CKSF (2001), p 30.