Desert Onion (Allium macropetalum)

Family Liliaceae

 

Desert Onion grows from a bulb which may lie a foot below soil surface. The single stalk may be up to a foot tall, and its two leaves are low and grasslike. When crushed, they smell like onion.

 

(Click on the image at left to enlarge it.)

 

 

 

 

The flowers are a pale pink, with six petals opening out like a bowl-star. Each petal has a reddish brown vertical stripe. A distinctive feature can best be seen in the image below: near the top of the ovary there are six rounded, flattened crests: