Wild Onion

Kendall County (IL) Forest Preserve District

Wild Onion (Wild Garlic)
Allium canadense [C-value 2]
Lily family (Liliaceae)
Blooms June

The native Wild Onion is common in our area. It prefers full to partial sun and moderately moist fertile loamy soil. Habitats include black soil prairies, moist woodlands and floodplains. This perennial is a pungent tasty plant with a rosette of basal leaves and flowering stalks emerging from the ground that are 8-15" tall and stiffly erect. Each stalk terminates in an inflorescence that has a sack-like covering spanning about ¾" across that splits open and withers away to reveal an umbel of flowers and bulblets. The flowers are about ½" across with 6 light pink to white petals. The bulblets are about ¼" long, ovoid in shape, and light green to pinkish red.

Wild Onion at Lyon Forest Preserve June 7, 2015

Wild Onion at Richard Young Forest Preserve June 2, 2015

Wild Onion leaf

Wild Onion at Richard Young Forest Preserve June 2, 2015

Native Americans used Wild Onion bulbs for food (boiled or fried) and for seasoning of meats and stews. Wild Onion was also used for medicinal purposes as a cathartic, diuretic and expectorant and for treatment of scurvy and asthma. Reminder: see our Do Not Disturb Notice.

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