NODDING WILD ONION 



Allium cer-Hiiiim tioth. 



LILY FAMILY 



As a culinary herb the onion is known to everyone, but many 

 fail to recognize in this dainty and graceful plant a member of 

 that odorous tribe. And yet its narrow, long-necked bulbs 

 possess the characteristic odor in such concentrated power as 

 to render them highly objectionable to some people. Still, since 

 the bulbs are deep in the soil, they need not interfere with our 

 admiration for the pretty flowers. 



The leaves of the Nodding Wild Onion are not hollow tubes 

 like those of the garden onion, but are flat and grass-like, and pale 

 jrrcen in color by reason of a whitening bloom. The flower- 

 stalks, growing one or two feet high, over-top the leaves. Each 

 stalk bears many nodding flowers in an umbel. At first each 

 luicl cluster is enclosed in 'a thin, semi-transparent membrane, 

 as shown in the upper left-hand corner of our picture. Soon the 

 expanding buds burst this fragile covering, and one after another 

 open like tiny bells with six projecting stamens. In texture the 

 (lowers are thin and delicate, and in color they vary from white 

 to rose, and purple, the more delicate shades being common. 



The sheathed buds, rising upon a slender stalk and bursting 

 into downward-pointed 'blossoms, suggest a rocket, which, rising 

 high into the air, curves gracefully earthward and then, explod- 

 ing, casts down a shower of gaily-colored stars. 



The Nodding Wild Onion is a typical flower of tin- prairie 

 country and in midsummer may often be found blooming on 

 wooded banks among thickets, and in meadows. 



