Family: onions (Alliaceae)
Flowering time: August–September
Size: 20–50 cm
Habitat: wet and marshy meadows and low bogs
The round stem of fragrant onion (Allium suaveolens) is leafed only in the lower third. The lower, ridged leaves are narrow, 1.5 to 3 mm wide. If you crush them between your fingers they smell distinctly of garlic. At the top of the stem, in autumn, a head-shaped inflorescence of pedicellate flowers with whitish and pink tepals blooms. For the six-petalled flowers with a pleasant fragrance, the stamens are markedly longer than the petals of the perianth.
Fragrant onion grows in wet, sometimes even flooded grassy habitats. It prefers moderately rich, alkaline soils. In the lowland parts of central Slovenia, only a few sites of fragrant onion are known; the species is fairly rare also in neighboring countries.
