I spied a white haze of flowers out in the clearcut, and I pulled off the side of the road to investigate.
My heart breaks a bit when I see land striped of trees. Even if it is planted timber, I find myself thinking of what is lost.
However, I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t also leap a bit with curiosity. Such areas are good places to find the toughest of the tough wildflowers that can withstand disturbance and stress in the form of traffic, machinery, and overall being driven over multiple times.
I exited the truck as thunder rolled low in the distance and made my way through the rain-soaked grass into what used to be forest. And, I realized the patches of color was coming from Allium canadense.
Alliums are a group of plants I adore. There’s the motley crew of edibles that grace our gardens and our eventual plates and the spherical lollypop trophies that we long to see in plantings.
The problem is outside the vegetables we grow, most don’t do well in the deep south. Enter Allium canadense.
Allium canadense has a bad reputation for the weedy bulbils that it produces. But, it is a shame that one bad apple (or should I say onion!) has spoiled this species’s reputation. There are actually five different varieties of this plant. The noxious Allium canadense var. canadense (wild garlic) produces the weedy bulbils that arise from vegetative apomixis, a fascinating process in itself (but, that’s for another blog post...).
Such darling flowers on Allium canadense var. mobilense
I had found Allium canadense var. mobilense, meadow garlic or Mobile garlic. One of the identifying traits of this variety is that the bulbils are replaced by seed capsules. Some have speculated that this plant is actually the sexually reproductive version of var. canadense.
I had noticed it near my house in the ditches, but it was always a pipsqueak of a plant. The rosy white flowers have teased me more than once as I drove along in thinking I had found something else.
But, here where little but a weedy mess grew, the blossoms were a welcome site. The plants were more robust that I was used to seeing. I wondered why the bulk. Perhaps being out in a full sun environment with no competition allowed these underdogs to finally hit their prime?
The flowers were so robust and large on some specimens of meadow garlic.
And, they were plentiful in number, too! Probably a few thousand. As I walked through the post-rain muck, the diversity I saw was incredible —pink forms, forms that looked like chives, and one form that was quite larger!
Another thing that impressed me was how they seemed to grow in wet areas, a site that Allium species normally frown upon. Alliums in the south struggle with our heat and wetness, and here these were growing almost in a creek.
Allium canadense var. mobilense was tolerant of wet conditions. Most Alliums in the trade would struggle with so much moisture.
I collected a few that I felt had merit. I doubt they will ever be missed from this ghost of a forest, but I will cherish them as yet another rugged plant for the south that deserves wider use.
A sampling of the plants I wild collected. Notice the diversity in colors and forms. The one on the far right excites me the most. The plants were larger and flower heads more robust.
Another perspective so you can see the corolla color better.
