Few Flowered Leek

The Few-flowered Leek (Allium paradoxum)


Firstly, I must admit to relative ignorance about this specives. Untill about 10 years ago, I thought this plant was wild garlic. Not so. A local ranger set me right and now I wonder at how unobservant I was since it is so different from wild garlic or ramsons (Allium ursinum) which has larger, multiple flowers and has far broader leaves.

Few-flowered Leek (Allium paradoxum) is an invasive non-native species, and a relative of wild garlic, from the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

In 2005 it was added to schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act which makes it illegal to do anything that assists it to grow in the wild.

Around here, it is so ubiquitous that you cannot enter any woodland in spring without encountering great swathes of green carpets formed of this weed. There used to be some growing in my garden and it took me 10 years to eradicate it so there is little chance of eradicating it from the wild.

It has three means of reproduction.
1) by seed from its occasional flowers, generally just one or two per flower-head.
2) from the spread of asexually produced bulbils that form instead of flowers in the flowerhead (usually 3 or 4 per stem).
3) from asexually produced bulbs that bud from existing underground bulbs (again, about 3 or 4 per plant).

Nevertheless. it makes an interesting subject for a Blip.