Meet the Onion Family

• The Onion Family, Alliaceae, is a family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants. They are monocots, part of order Asparagales. Allium is a monocot genus of flowering plants in the Alliaceae family.
• Members of the genus include many economically important crops and garden vegetables such as garden onions (A. cepa), shallots (A. oschaninii), leeks (A. ampeloprasum), scallions (A. ascalonicum) and herbs such as garlic (A. sativum) and chives (A. schoenoprasum). Others are cultivated as ornamentals.
• Allium species occur in temperate climates of the northern hemisphere, except for a few species occurring in Chile (such as Allium juncifolium), Brazil (Allium sellovianum) or tropical Africa (Allium spathaceum). 
• They can vary in height between 5 cm and 150 cm. 
• The flowers form an umbel at the top of a leafless stalk. 
• The bulbs vary in size between species, from very small (around 2–3 mm in diameter) to rather large (8–10 cm). 
• Some species (such as Welsh onion, A. fistulosum) develop thickened leaf-bases rather than forming bulbs as such. 
• Allium is a genus of perennial bulbous plants that produce chemical compounds (mostly cysteine sulfoxide) that give them a characteristic onion or garlic taste and odour. 
• Many are used as food plants, though not all members of the genus are equally flavourful. 
• In most cases, both bulb and leaves are edible. Their taste may be strong or weaker, depending on the species.
• Allium is one of about 57 genera of flowering plants that have more than 500 species. It is by far the largest genus in the family Alliaceae. 

Onion Family - Botany

• Allium species are herbaceous perennials with flowers produced on scapes. 
• They grow from solitary or clustered tunicate bulbs and many have an onion odour and taste. 
• Plants are perennialized by bulbs that reform annually from the base of the old bulb, or are produced on the ends of rhizomes or, in a few species, at the ends of stolons. 
• The bulbs have outer coats that are commonly brown or grey, with a smooth texture, and are fibrous, or with cellular reticulation. The inner coats of the bulbs are membranous.
• Many alliums have basal leaves that commonly wither away from the tips downward before or while the plant flower, but some species have persistent foliage. 
• Plants produce from one to twelve leaves, most species having linear, channeled or flat leaf blades. 
• The leaf blades are straight or variously coiled, but some species have broad leaves, including A. victorialis and A. tricoccum. 
• The leaves are sessile, and very rarely narrowed into a petiole.
• The inflorescences are umbels, in which the outside flowers bloom first and flowering progresses to the inside. 
• Some species produce bulbils within the umbels, and in some species the bulbils replace some or all the flowers. 
• The flowers are erect or in some species pendent, having six petal-like tepals produced in two whorls. 
• The flowers have one style and six epipetalous stamens; the anthers and pollen can vary in color depending on the species. The ovaries are superior, and three-lobed with three locules.
• The fruits are capsules that open longitudinally along the capsule wall between the partitions of the locule. The seeds are black, and have a rounded shape.
• Some bulbous alliums increase by forming little bulbs or "offsets" around the old one, as well as by seed. Several species can form many bulbils in the flowerhead; in the so-called "tree onion" or Egyptian onion (A. cepa Proliferum Group) the bulbils are few, but large enough to be pickled.

Onion Family - Members