Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Genus: Allium

Two mornings ago, on 30 June 2016, I just made it in time for a botany visit to our main naturalist leader's home and garden. He and his wife have an amazing garden, full of so many kinds of flowers, including a good variety of native plants. One of my favourites is Showy Milkweed - love the cluster of individual flowers growing on a rounded head. These plants have spread over a lot of the front garden. All they need now is for Monarch butterflies to fly a bit further north than they usually do and discover this little bit of butterfly heaven. In 2012, though, it was very unusual, as people were seeing a few of these amazing butterflies in Alberta, including in Calgary. I even got to see and photograph a few Monarch caterpillars in this garden, for the very first and last time. Our leader also has a large vegetable garden. One thing that always fascinates me is the Egyptian Walking Onion. Each one seems to take on its own artistic shape and I love to photograph these - both fascinating and quite beautiful. "Tree onions, topsetting onions, walking onions, or Egyptian onions, Allium ×proliferum, are similar to common onions (A. cepa), but with a cluster of bulblets where a normal onion would have flowers. Genomic evidence has conclusively shown that they are a hybrid of the common onion and the Welsh onion (A. fistulosum). However, some sources may still treat the tree onion as A. cepa var. proliferum or A. cepa Proliferum Group. Tree onion bulblets will sprout and grow while still on the original stalk, which may bend down under the weight of the new growth and take root some distance from the parent plant, giving rise to the name "walking onion". It has been postulated that the name "Egyptian onion" is derived from tree onions being brought to Europe from the Indian subcontinent by the Romani people. The phenomenon of forming bulblets instead of flowers is also seen in garlic and other alliums, which sometimes may also be referred to as top onions or tree onions. The bulblets are usually marble-sized, between 0.5 cm to 3 cm in diameter. Many tree onions are very strong flavoured, although some cultivars are relatively mild and sweet. The underground bulbs are particularly tough-skinned and pungent, and can be quite elongate, like leeks, or in some types may form bulbs up to 5 cm across. Young plants may be used as scallions in the spring, and the bulblets may be used in cooking similarly to regular onions, or preserved by pickling." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_onion www.egyptianwalkingonion.com/ In the afternoon of this day, we experienced a huge rain and hail storm. Fortunately, it cleared up in time to go on Don Stiles' annual evening Bluebird route trip. I always look forward to going with Don on his nest box route, checking on a few of the boxes and finding either Bluebird or Tree Swallow eggs or babies. Don records all the information about numbers and dates, and also demonstrates how he carefully bands the young birds. Thanks, as always, Don, for an enjoyable evening outing and thank you for all the many, many years (must be somewhere around 35?) you have spent helping to preserve our beautiful Bluebirds. We all enjoyed seeing the various other bird species during the evening, too.

No matter where I am, I always love coming across Wild Chives. Love the colour. Photographed this flower on 19 June 2015, along the Chief Mountain Parkway in Waterton Lakes National Park. It was growing along with vibrant Wood Lilies and white Mountain Lady's Slippers. The whole area along that road had had the leaves stripped from the trees by millions of Tent Caterpillars - they were all over the tree trunks and branches and on the ground. This was the first day of a three-day trip to Waterton. Travelling south from Calgary was roughly a three-hour drive, giving us time to do some exploring in the park the rest of the day. I was so lucky to be invited to join friends Sandy and Heide on a three-day trip to Waterton Lakes National Park, from 19-21 (inclusive) June 2015. We met up with other members of the Alberta Native Plant Council for their annual Botany Alberta weekend. Most people who attended stayed at the Crooked Creek Campground, a 5.6 km drive east of the Waterton Park Gate on Highway 5, but my friends and I stayed at the Crandell Mountain Lodge on the edge of Waterton town. The ANPC people had a list of species that they hoped to find, and they were very successful. Our stay down south overlapped the annual Waterton Wildflower Festival, but we came across very few people on our various drives and hikes. Needless to say, I was extremely fortunate to spend three days with people who are very knowledgeable about plants and many other things. This meant that I got to see many wildflower species, including several that were new to me, such as the gorgeous Mariposa Lily. It was one of the flowers that was on my Wish List - and there were hundreds of them to be seen! I had also never seen the spectacular Bear Grass and I was so thrilled that there were still several plants in bloom. Absolutely made my day! Our two main hikes of the weekend were the Bertha Lake Trail as far as the Bertha Falls (on 20 June), and the Crandell Lake Trail (on 21 June). Makes me smile when a described "short, easy hike" in a book or on the Internet turns into a full day of exploration along the trail, taking hours to reach the destination, though returning to the cars in a much shorter time. Our walks/hikes are very slow-paced with endless stops to look at/for plants and to take photos. This makes it possible for me to go along. Crandell Lake from the Crandell Campground trailhead: Return distance 4.0 km (2.4 miles), elevation gain 150 metres (492'), hiking time 1.5 hours (we took all day!). Bertha Falls from the townsite trailhead: Return distance 5.6 km (3.4 miles), elevation gain 150 metres (492'), hiking time 1.5 hours (again, we took all day). For me, this hike felt much further than it was! The wind made photographing plants a real challenge, including the beautiful Mariposa Lilies in the meadow along the Hay Barn road. Trying to catch a quick shot when a flower is blowing in and out of the viewfinder is not easy! Unfortunately, I'm no longer able to get down and take macro shots (my lens needs to be about 4" away from the subject), so my photos have to be telemacro. I've been trying to find an online list of plant species in Waterton Park, but have so far been out of luck. I do have the book, "Wildflowers of Waterton Park" by Jacinthe Lavoie and Ian Wilson, which has an Index of Plant names, but I was hoping to find a list that I could print out. It's going to take me ages to type descriptions for the various photos I'll slowly be posting, and I will no doubt keep adding new bits and pieces over time. There is just so much information I want to add, but my descriptions are already way too long. Also, my photos of quite a few of the plants will be posted for the use of ANPC members and are, unfortunately, really poor images. Need them added to my Waterton Lakes album, so please bear with me : ) Luckily, you don't even need to look at them.

This photo was taken on 27 July 2014, in a friend's back garden that is full of vegetables. I like seeing Garlic plants - both fascinating and quite beautiful. I wonder how much damage was caused to everything by the two snowstorms we had on 9 and 10 September. Or maybe my friends had already pulled most of the vegetables - hopefully. "Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, and rakkyo. With a history of human use of over 7,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent seasoning in Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was known to Ancient Egyptians, and has been used for both culinary and medicinal purposes. Garlic is grown globally, but China is by far the largest producer of garlic, with approximately 10.5 million tonnes (23 billion pounds) grown annually, accounting for over 77% of world output. India (4.1%) and South Korea (2%) follow, with Egypt and Russia (1.6%) tied in fourth place and the United States (where garlic is grown in every state except for Alaska) in sixth place (1.4%).[17] This leaves 16% of global garlic production in countries that each produce less than 2% of global output. Much of the garlic production in the United States is centered in Gilroy, California, which calls itself the "garlic capital of the world"." From Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic