WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

This widespread wild onion occurs throughout western and central New Mexico in arid desert and plains. Note the bracts around cluster or white, pink-striped flowers have 2–5 nerves, and each plant has 2 basal leaves that are longer than the flower stem (scape). Plants have 1–5 bulbs without basal bulbils (little bulbs) enclosed in a network of coarse fibers. Blooms in the spring.

FLOWER: March–June. A rounded cluster (umbel) with 10–20 small flowers blooms atop a 2–7 3/4-inch tall (5–20 cm) stem (scape); flowers bell-shaped (spreading open) to urn-shaped (constricted near top); 5/16–1/2-inch long (8–12 mm); 6 white to pink petals with reddish midstrip, tips pointed to rounded, stamens enclosed. Bracts around flower cluster have 2–5 nerves. Flowers do not form bulbils.

LEAVES: Basal, two per scape (flower stalk). Blades solid, channeled, 3–7 3/4-inches long (8–20 cm).

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly soils; below pinyon-juniper woodlands in western and central NM deserts and plains.

ELEVATION: 4,400–7360 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, TX, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Plains Onion, A. perdulce, common in deserts and plains of eastern NM, has deep-rose to white flowers with a red midstrip, 3 leaves per scape, and is the only onion in NM with (usually) fragrant flowers.

NM COUNTIES: Central and western NM in mid- to low-elevation habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Chaves, De Baca, Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Guadalupe, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, Rio Arriba, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance, Union, Valencia.