LARGE-PETALED WILD ONION

ALLIUM MACROPETALUM

Onion Family, Alliaceae (formerly in the Liliaceae)

Perennial herb

This widespread wild onion occurs throughout western and central New Mexico in arid desert and plains. Note the bracts with 2–5 veins around cluster of white, pink-striped flowers. Each plant has 2 basal leaves that are longer than the flower stem (scape). Plants have 1–5 bulbs without basal bulbils (little bulbs) enclosed in a network of coarse fibers. Blooms in the spring.

FLOWER: March–June. A rounded cluster (umbel) with 10–20 small flowers, blooms atop a 2–7 3/4-inch-tall (5–20 cm) stem (scape); flowers bell-shaped (spreading open) to urn-shaped (constricted near top); 5/16–1/2 inch long (8–12 mm); 6 white to pink petals with reddish mid-stripe, tips pointed to rounded, stamens enclosed. Bracts around flower cluster have 2–5 veins. Flowers do not form bulbils.

LEAVES: Basal, two per scape (flower stalk). Blades solid, channeled, 3–7 3/4 inches long (8–20 cm).

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils; below piñon-juniper woodlands in western and central NM deserts and plains.

ELEVATION: 4,400–7,360 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Plains Onion, A. perdulce, common in deserts and plains of eastern NM, has deep-rose to white flowers with a red mid-stripe, 3 leaves per scape, and is the only onion in NM with (usually) fragrant flowers.

NM COUNTIES: Central and western NM in mid- to low-elevation habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, De Baca, Doña Ana, Eddy, Grant, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.