PlantFiles: Texas False Garlic
Nothoscordum texanum

Allium texanum

‘Texas False Garlic’ or ‘White King’ or ‘Texas Wild Onion’

A robust upland species native to seepy, wet situations such as swales and bottomlands, in alkaline clay soil from the hills of Central Texas to Oklahoma. Many flowered dome-shaped umbels (60-100) of chalk white starry flowers with green ovaries appear in late spring (usually during the first months of May) on scapes nearly 2’ tall. The robust foliage is distinctive, being flat, about ½" wide, glaucous, blue, and spiraling. It needs to be well watered while flowering or the buds will abort. This is one of the two largest flowering native Texas wild alliums and was differentiated from Allium canadense var fraseri in 1990 by Thad Howard. Prior to this it was considered Allium canadense var fraseri (as yet another strain) but if you grow both of these alliums, like I do, they are as different as night and day with a distinctively different set of physical and ecological characteristics.

Easy to grow, undemanding, drought tolerant (but will appreciate late summer moisture while dormant); an excellent candidate for mixing in the border with daylilies or other late-spring blooming natives and perennials. Good for growing from zones 5-9.