These allium or chives has a fun habit of winding itself into loops. Does anyone recognize the species or cultivar? The bulb are tiny and white.

Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon - aka garlic scapes or hardneck garlic. Read up on them, they're delicious in stir fries and Mexican dishes, harvest when tender, their taste is something like a cross between garlic/ chives/ shallots. On baked potatoes ...... oh man!

Al

I don't think those are garlic scapes; the scapes don't grow directly out of the ground and they also have a flower at the tip.

Possibly some type of ornamental allium - do the stems smell like onion if you cut or crush them? Or maybe something like this "Frizzle Sizzle" plant
https://succulentsbox.com/blog...

This is a photo of garlic scapes from my garden

If it doesn't smell like garlic, it's not garlic. Don't eat it until you are sure.

Thank you all for the suggestions! The succulent is cool. Definitely not that, though. It is definitely an allium of some sort as they do smell like chives or onion or garlic. The person who gave me these has passed away but I recall her thinking they may be nodding onion. I had planted them and forgot about them. They look like grass when they first come up. I don't know what they will look if they bloom.

Too early for flower buds to have formed in Maine.

Images of :
https://www.google.com/search?...


Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon

Al

tapla said: Too early for flower buds to have formed in Maine.

Images of :
https://www.google.com/search?...


Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon

Al

Thank you for the photo! Found some photos on this blog site, too: https://landed.weebly.com/gard...

The corkscrew habit is very similar to mine. At this point, mine has no buds and also it lacks the layered look of the stalks in the photo you posted. The bulbs are white and thus far very tiny. I will see if the scent on mine seems more like garlic than onion. I might have to wait til they mature in size to make a determination.

My oma used to grow it in her rock garden, bless her soul. Thanks for reminding me of it. It's been too long since I thought about her sitting in the sun pulling weeds in their gardens and trying to get us to sample the garlic, but we were onto her tricks. We were just waiting for her bread to rise because whenever we visited on bread days, she would stretch out balls of dough 'til flatish and fry them in lard, then sprinkle with salt. We'd grab them as fast as she could fry them and sprinkle them with salt, slather them with farm-churned butter, and eat ourselves silly. Soooo good, and such great memories.

She would always generously use the cloves from bulbs at the neck of the plant in her dill pickles, chili sauce, and for and cooking that needed some pungency. Opa added some to his homemade sauerkraut, too. He had a crock sitting in the entryway they kept full of it. Every day when he walked home from work (never owned a car) he would take the cloth off the cover and the stone off the plant that held the kraut down in the fermenting liquid, grab a big handful of the kraut, and shake the juice off before stuffing it in his mouth. He also mowed his lawn every day, rain or shine, with a reel mower - one of the old time mowers with no motor.

Lol - this ^^^ is what a bout with insomnia will do to ya.

Al

From your original pic, it's a little early and a little unclear to see where all the stalks are emerging, although the largest ones definitely are the center stalk with with leaves on either side, as garlic grows. All Alliums are edible, but not all are palatable. Some even have woody rhizomes instead of bulbs.

tapla said: My oma used to grow it in her rock garden, bless her soul. Thanks for reminding me of it. It's been too long since I thought about her sitting in the sun pulling weeds in their gardens and trying to get us to sample the garlic, but we were onto her tricks. We were just waiting for her bread to rise because whenever we visited on bread days, she would stretch out balls of dough 'til flatish and fry them in lard, then sprinkle with salt. We'd grab them as fast as she could fry them and sprinkle them with salt, slather them with farm-churned butter, and eat ourselves silly. Soooo good, and such great memories.

She would always generously use the cloves from bulbs at the neck of the plant in her dill pickles, chili sauce, and for and cooking that needed some pungency. Opa added some to his homemade sauerkraut, too. He had a crock sitting in the entryway they kept full of it. Every day when he walked home from work (never owned a car) he would take the cloth off the cover and the stone off the plant that held the kraut down in the fermenting liquid, grab a big handful of the kraut, and shake the juice off before stuffing it in his mouth. He also mowed his lawn every day, rain or shine, with a reel mower - one of the old time mowers with no motor.

Lol - this ^^^ is what a bout with insomnia will do to ya.

Al

Thank you, Al! I appreciate reading your mouth watering recollections of the delicious garlic and your fond memories of family, too!