Re: Nothoscardum

Dear Richard and other members,

That would be Allium triquetrum, which is a 
mediterranean plant from the actual Mediterranean. I 
wrote about it in my book Golden Gate Gardening as a 
weed that is edible. (The rule of thumb is that if an 
onion-like plant doesn't smell like onion, don't eat it, 
but this one, as you said, smells strongly of onion.) 
We keep it in a small area of the garden and eat the 
leaves as you would green onions all winter. They are 
fine added to soup as you are about to serve it, or in 
salad, or whereever scallions are called for. We use the 
flowers in salads.
To identify: the flower stems are triangular in cross-
section and the leaves have a strong keel, which gives 
them a third angle as well. The flowers have a green 
line the length of each of the 6 tepals (petal or 
sepal). 
To get rid of it: Pull as it begins to bloom to get the 
whole plant. Or, after it goes dormant in spring, dig 
out all of the bulbs. 

Pam Peirce,
San Francisco
Zone 9 or 10
> For the California readers, does anyone know the name of the weed-like onion
> that grows all over the SF bay area?  (Dormant this time of year).  Unlike
> Nothoscardium, it has a strong onion-like smell.  Flowers look very much the
> same.  White bulbs, round, about 1 cm in diameter, several inches below the
> surface (no bulbils to speak of) and resembles the green onion sold in
> stores.  I note that Cal Flora lists 45 species of allium in California.
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