Wild Onion

Biological Name:

Allium spp. (Wild-Onion)

Natural Habitat:

Wild-Onion is a bulbous plant that is native to North and South America. It can grow in meadows, fields, and along the edges of forests.

Description:

Wild-Onion is a perennial herb that is native to North America. It has small white flowers and long narrow leaves. It is often found in moist shaded areas and is used in traditional medicine.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: Can you eat little wild onions?
A: Human Connections. Our wild onions are edible and can be eaten as a vegetable, seasoning, or pickled. To ensure you don’t accidentally eat an extremely poisonous relative, make sure all parts of the plant have a strong onion smell. All wild onions and garlics arise from bulbs and have flowers in umbels.
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Q: Can wild onions be used in cooking?
A: You can use wild onion in any recipe where you’d use onions, scallions, shallots, chives, leeks, or garlic—whenever you want a little onion flavor. You don’t have to cook them (they taste great chopped up in a salad or as a soup garnish), but you can.
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Q: What are wild onions called?
A: Wild Onion (Allium canadense), also known as Meadow Garlic, Tree Onion, Wild Garlic, and Canadian Garlic, is a perennial plant native to North America. It has an edible bulb covered with a dense skin of brown fibres and tastes like an onion.
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Q: Can you eat raw wild onions?
A: Edibility: Use the same as domestic onions, for seasoning, or raw in salads. Bulbs can be used raw, boiled, pickled, or for seasoning. Flowers and stems are also edible.
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Q: Are all wild onion edible?
A: Human Connections. Our wild onions are edible and can be eaten as a vegetable, seasoning, or pickled. To ensure you don’t accidentally eat an extremely poisonous relative, make sure all parts of the plant have a strong onion smell. All wild onions and garlics arise from bulbs and have flowers in umbels.
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Q: What poisonous plant looks like wild onion?
A: Nothoscordum bivalve (Crow poison) looks very much like the Allium species. However, you can tell them apart by smelling them. The Allium species smell like onions or garlic—the crow poison smells musky. Also, crow poison has cream-colored flowers and the Allium has white, pink or lavender colored flowers.
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Q: What are the wild onions in my yard?
A: Wild Onion (also called Onion Grass) is a common weed that grows on lawns and flowerbeds and has distinctive onion smell. Wild Onion looks similar to Wild Garlic with the main difference being that Wild Onion has wider, more grass-like leaves, while Wild Garlic leaves are thin, tube-like and hollow.
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Q: How do you identify a Wild Onion?
A: ”
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Q: Do wild onions taste good?
A: The onion genus – Allium has many members. However, not all have a pleasing taste. The wild onion and garlic species tend to be more pungent than the cultivated species.
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Q: Where do wild onions grow?
A: Allium canadense, the Canada onion, Canadian garlic, wild garlic, meadow garlic and wild onion is a perennial plant native to eastern North America from Texas to Florida to New Brunswick to Montana. The species is also cultivated in other regions as an ornamental and as a garden culinary herb.
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Q: What is the difference between wild garlic and wild onion?
A: The easiest way to tell them apart is by their leaves. Wild garlic has hollow leaves and wild onion has solid flat leaves. Both are noticeable in lawns where they generally grow faster than the surrounding grass. Control is the same for both species.
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Q: Are wild onions actually onions?
A: Wild onions are members of the onion family which grow naturally in the wild, rather than being specifically cultivated. They can be found all over the world, and several species are treated as culinary delicacies, such as the ramp, also known as Allium tricoccum.
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Q: Are wild onions safe to eat raw?
A: Here are just a few ideas for how to use them: You can safely eat wild onions raw: Try sprinkling them on top of salads or stir-fries. However, wild onions tend to be tougher and stringier compared to domestic relatives such as spring onions, and so some people prefer to cook them before eating.
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Q: What part of a wild onion can you eat?
A: All parts of this particular Wild Onion/Garlic are edible, the underground bulbs, the long, thin leaves, the blossoms, and the bulblets on top. The bulblets are small cloves the plant sets where it blossoms. Harvesting them is a little easier than digging for bulbs but those are easy to find also.
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Q: Do wild onions smell like garlic?
A: Wild onions and garlic are relatively easy to identify this time of year as they have green slender leaves similar to, but thinner than, garden green onions. They grow faster and taller than the surrounding grass, have a strong onion/garlic smell when fresh cut or mowed, and grow in patches and spread by seed.
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Q: Does wild onion smell like onion?
A: Not surprisingly, it has a strong onion smell. The wild onion multiplies quickly, spreading by bulbs and seeds, and it is very hard to remove once established. Like Oxalis, it can be controlled by digging up the entire plant, including the bulbs.
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Q: Can you grow wild onions?
A: Planting Wild Prairie Onions Add a handful of bone meal and work into the soil as well. Plant the bulbs with the root side down, pointed side up. They need to be at least 4 inches (10 cm.) deep in the soil but not more than 8 inches (20 cm.).
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Q: What can I do with wild onions?
A: I like to put them into everything in springtime, from eggs to pasta sauce to meatballs and Chinese scallion pancakes. If you want to preserve your onions, I like to pickle the bulbs, make Korean kimchi, lacto-ferment the whole wild onion or dehydrate them and grind them to make your own onion powder.
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About the author

Samuel is a gardening professional and enthusiast who has spent over 20 years advising homeowners and farm owners on weed identification, prevention and removal. He has an undergraduate degree in plant and soil science from Michigan State University.