Allium wallichii Seeds | Wallich’s Onion
LATIN NAME: Allium wallichii
COMMON NAME: Wallich’s Onion
Plant Profile
Wallich’s onion is a clump-forming bulbous perennial of the onion family, native to the high meadows and forest clearings of the Himalaya, from Nepal and Sikkim through Yunnan and Sichuan to Tibet. It grows thirty to sixty centimetres, with flat, keeled leaves and a loose umbel of star-shaped flowers in violet, lilac or occasionally white, opening in late summer.
The umbel is wide and airy rather than the tight ball of the cultivated onion, and each flower has a prominent ovary and six stamens that give the head a spiky, halfway look between an onion and an agapanthus. The whole plant smells of garlic when bruised, and the bulb is slender and clustered rather than single and swollen.
Science & Biotechnology
The species is one of a group of Himalayan onions that have been collected and named repeatedly, partly because the flower colour varies from deep violet to white across its range and partly because the genus hybridises where species meet. Allium wallichii is placed in the subgenus Amerallium, the group that also contains the American onions and the cultivated leek’s wild relatives.
Its altitudinal range, from about two thousand five hundred to four thousand five hundred metres, makes it one of the hardier onions in cultivation, and it has been used in breeding programmes looking for cold tolerance and for late flowering in ornamental alliums. The leaves contain the usual sulfur compounds of the genus, and the plant has a place in the pharmacopoeia of the region as a digestive and a vermifuge.
Uses & Benefits
In Himalayan communities the leaves and bulbs are gathered as a wild vegetable and used in much the same way as chives, in soups, dumplings and pickles. The flavour is strong and rather coarse, and the leaves are usually cooked rather than eaten raw. It is also sold in local markets as a medicinal herb, dried and powdered.
In a garden it is a plant for the rock garden, the alpine trough or the front of a border, where its late-summer umbels follow the earlier alliums. It is fully hardy and tolerates cold and wet better than most of its relatives. It is also a useful plant for a wildflower meadow in a cool climate, since it competes with grass without suppressing it.
Growing from Seed
Sow in autumn or early spring on the surface of a gritty, well-drained compost, and cover lightly. The seed needs cold to germinate well, so a spell outdoors through winter, or six weeks in the refrigerator, gives the most even results. Seedlings are slow and grass-like for the first year.
Plant the bulbs out in autumn, two to three centimetres deep, in a sunny position with sharp drainage; they sit better in a raised bed or a trough than in heavy soil. Water through the growing season and keep the plants dry once the leaves die back. Lift and divide the clumps every four or five years, when the bulbs become crowded and the flowers smaller.
Our Take
A hardy Himalayan onion with violet umbels in late summer and a strong garlic smell. Give it sharp drainage and a cold winter, and it will seed about.
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