BOTANICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIES: Allium fibrillum | Garlic Mustard 



GENERAL BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS : 
Fringed onion is a small native perennial onion.  Its almost spherical
nonrhizomatous bulb is 0.25 to 0.6 inch (0.6-1.5 cm) thick.  The outer
bulbcoats are net veined and without fibers until old.  The vein nets
are irregular, narrow, contorted with wavy or curving sides, often
reddish, and become fiber fringed with age.  The two or three leaves are
rather narrowly linear, 3 to 6 inches (8-15 cm) long.  The white flowers
are in a small, terminal, flat-topped umbel, subtended by two ovate
bracts less than 0.5 inch (1.3 cm) long.  The six petallike segments are
abruptly sharp tipped and 0.25 inch (0.6 cm) long.  The three outer
segments are ovate, the three inner ones lance shaped and untoothed.
The stames are very short, only about half as long as the floral
segments.  The fruiting capsules are slightly ridged [2].


RAUNKIAER LIFE FORM : 
   Geophyte


REGENERATION PROCESSES : 
Fringed onion can regenerate vegetatively from the bulbs or by seed
sexually produced by pollination and fertilization [3].


SITE CHARACTERISTICS : 
Fringed onion grows in shallow soils in moist, open, or partially shaded
areas at low elevations [4,5].  It has been reported in Montana at 4,500
feet (1,452 m) [8].


SUCCESSIONAL STATUS : 
NO-ENTRY


SEASONAL DEVELOPMENT : 
Fringed onion flowers from May through July, but mostly in June [4,5].
By August, like most other onions, it dries up and disappears [2].

Related categories for Species: Allium fibrillum | Garlic Mustard