My edible "alpines"

[gote]

Stephen,
Mine come - I think - from the litle ridge Kilsbergen northwest of Örebro. You are welcome to some bulbs at a suitable time of the year but please remind me.
Göte
PS
 I assume that you now have put your mark on the English language. 'Edimentals'

[cohan]

great thread! thanks

i am just starting both ornamental and food gardens, carved from the bush here in zone 2-3 western canada;
definitely intending to explore edible natives, herbs and much more; edimentals are always welcome--why have only one of the two if you can have both ?

i recently purchased a book on edibles of the rocky mountains, though i suspect many of these plants would not be pleasing to modern palates( a lower tolerance of bitter foods--probably esp here in north america!) and some that sound most tasty are beautiful flowering bulbs (eg, camassia) that i'd be loathe to dig up even if they were thriving for me...lol
cohan

[Stephenb]

Well, I'm sure you can find this one in the Rocky Mountains. The Nodding Onion, Allium cernuum is one of my favourite perennial vegetables. Look at the pictures and background below and I think you’ll see why.

It has the widest distribution of any Allium in North America and prefers full sun habitats, although it prefers cooler damper conditions (it thrives in my cool garden anyway).

See http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ALCE2

It is believed that the city of Chicago was named after a local Indian tribe’s name for this onion (although possibly also others), being a common plant where the city was founded. This onion was widely used as a staple by Native American tribes throughout its range. I remember years ago getting a copy of Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World and reading that Allium cernuum and A. canadense had formed almost the entire source of food to the French Missionary (Jacques) Marquette and his party from Green Bay to the present site of Chicago in 1674! I love plants with a story and this inspired me originally to get hold of this plant. Fittingly, there’s a park in Chicago called Marquette Park (named after Pere Marquette) and a remnant of the original prairie on which Chicago was built thrives there thanks to volunteers, with Allium cernuum one of the original plants…..

Most pictures below are of the large cultivar “Pink Giant” – at least this is what I got it as many years ago. Although probably not an official name I see that it is now offered by nurseries and in seed catalogues, possibly originally from me as I’ve sent it to many people over the years. From my experience, there are probably several synonyms: “Hidcote”, “Rubra”, “Major” that I’ve received from rock garden clubs have all turned out very similar to Pink Giant.

So, here is a year in the life of the Nodding Onion (it doesn’t get much rest from my “grazing”, poor thing, available all year round…). The taste? It’s fairly strong, similar in strength to common bulb onions (Allium cepa).

The first picture shows various Alliums harvested here in late March as soon as the earth has thawed (some species of perennial Allium can even be harvested in mid-Winter putting on new growth in mild spells)
From L to R: Allium obliquum, A. x proliferum, A. nutans, A. cernuum, A. victorialis, A. fistulosum, A. schoenoprasum sibiricum, Allium ursinum, A. schoenoprasum

Now (Picture 2), in late April – a picture of various perennial veggies ready for the pot – Allium cernuum is rather attractive, don’t you think?

This is one of the most attractive Alliums in my opinion. In picture 3 the nodding flowers are just emerging around mid-summer.

In flower (Picture 4 and 5)

There are a number of other attractive cultivars. This white flowered variety (Picture 6) is perhaps closer to the size of the wild species?

All together, a nodding bouquet (Picture 7)

If you like to decorate your salads with flowers, Allium cernuum is perfect, attractive and tasty. In picture 8, you can see both Pink Giant and album:

Allium cernuum self-seeds en masse if one doesn’t dead head (Picture 9) . It grows quite fast from seed.

The Nodding Onion remains green even in our hardest winter weather (Picture 10), although browning at the tips…

Hope this whetted the appetite, most of you probably have this one in the garden already, and it can be harvested today if you can find it under the snow....

[cohan]

thanks, stephen--nice pictures
A cernuum is widely available from wildflower nurseries, and i think the wild forms are available in both white and pink; i doubt many people eat it, although it is known that its edible;
 i dont have any yet, but it is on my list, for sure; it does occur wild in alberta, though i have not seen any around here; maybe this year i will be lucky enough to find some, likely on some field trip west or south;
 i suspect it will not be evergreen here, but it will be interesting to see, for sure--i'm fairly sure my coldest winter weather is colder than yours;
our ground has been frozen solid since early december, and, except for some exposed sunny spots, will be for quite some time to come yet, and still plenty of snow cover, except in those same exposed spots and some tree bases..

[Maggi Young]

Stephen, what are the flowers in the salad that look like Malva or Lavatera?

[Stephenb]

i suspect it will not be evergreen here, but it will be interesting to see, for sure--i'm fairly sure my coldest winter weather is colder than yours;

The lowest temperature I've experienced here is about -23C. We're right next to Norway's largest fjord which doesn't get below +6C which gives us a much milder climate than inland. At the moment we have a good snow cover, but it can disappear quite quickly. Allium cernuum stays evergreen down to at least -20C (without protective snow cover).

Stephen

[Stephenb]

Stephen, what are the flowers in the salad that look like Malva or Lavatera?

It's either Malva sylvestris or Malva moschata, the former I think!

[cohan]

yeah, a little colder here;
 being in the western part of the province, that means nearer the mountains, we still get the moderating air systems from the pacific (called chinooks, as probably some of you have heard of) which diminish as you go farther east--of course, those systems are already much weaker by the time they have come over the rockies, and this far north (southern alberta has it stronger), but we still have milder spells than areas to the east;
our min is around -45C, though not often seen, but a few days near -40 are not rare, and nights in -20's and days -10 to -18 are common enough; we are somewhere over 900m (town where i work, to the west 30km is 980m and the city to the east 60km is 905m), so there can be a large difference from day to night--i joked with a friend in florida that we can have more variation in a day than she gets in a year, and its just about  true! (for example we had some days in around 30C daytime, near freezing night; thursday's forecast is for a high of -1C and a low of -19..
cohan

[Gunilla]

Interesting. The pink form of Allium cernuum thrives in my garden and as you say it self-seeds a lot. The flowers are very nice and I often use them in flower arrangements.  I have never thought of eating them but I will try that now

[Stephenb]

Our unidentified Scandinavian onion.....or mystery and intrigue north of the Arctic circle

Here's one for my Swedish friends....

Here in Norway, the government funded Genetic Resource Centre (NGRC) was founded a few years ago (they were involved in the Doomsday Seed Vault on Svalbard which I’m sure many of you have heard of). As I’ve mentioned, I’m currently working (extra to my day job) coordinating a project for NGRC documenting and collecting old garden and naturalised onions (Allium).

I also mentioned earlier that I need some help with identification of a few om my Alliums. This is one of them. But first, let me tell its story. In 2004 I visited forumist Magnar Aspaker and his fantastic garden in Harstad in Northern Norway (hei Magnar if you are reading!). One of the plants I came away with was an unknown Allium which he called just Ex-Råneå as it came originally from a place of that name in Northern Sweden via another Swedish gardener. I planted it in my garden when I got home.

As you can see in the following pictures, it is quite a large plant and really is quite attractive. It is also a productive and tasty one from a food point of view (yes, an excellent edimental). As with most Alliums (all apart from the late flowering ones), one can harvest all the leaves for food and it will still flower later in the summer.









When I started working on my ”old onion” project I started hearing rumours of an unidentified onion being found in old gardens in Northern Sweden. It had been discovered by a botanist at the botanical gardens in Lund when they had been looking to see if Siberian/Giant Chives (Allium schoenoprasum ssp sibiricum), which is found commonly growing wild in coastal meadows in Northern Norway, was cultivated in this region. Initially it was thought that our mystery onion was maybe a cultivated form of Allium nutans, a species that is known to be grown for food in Russia to the east.

Last summer I heard that the opinion had changed and it was now thought to be a large form of Allium senescens, although there was still some doubt. I was in Southern Sweden last summer and took the opportunity to visit the botanics in Lund where I was told I could see the plant – I had begun to suspect that my plant from Magnar was one and the same. I unfortunately didn’t see the plant, but I noticed in the shop a small Swedish booklet ”Onions on the table” and in the book was our onion which had been named simply ”Norrlandslök” (Northland Onion) (with Allium senescens? written alongside). There is also a description of the plant – a relatively large plant, up to 75 cm tall and it is also sterile. My plant is also sterile! This would also suggest that this indeed was a cultivated onion, long propagated vegetatively. I contacted Lund by email a few weeks ago and sent a few pictures. They replied that they agree that my plant is the same as the Norrlandslök!!

I would appreciate if anyone recognises this plant or can ID it for me – perhaps one of our Russian friends might have seen it as I suspect that it has arrived from the east sometime in the past.

I have several other senescens in my garden, none of which are anything like Norrlandslök. Here are a couple:

The first two are probably Allium senescens senescens:





Allium senescens ssp montanum is not uncommonly found in Norwegian gardens and is an uncommon wild plant in the south of Sweden and Norway. Mine is only about 20 cm high:



To end with, many a time I’ve dreamed of owning some of the fantastic forms of Allium senescens and nutans shown on Mark McDonough’s site:

http://www.plantbuzz.com/Buzz/PBS/im_Allium%20senescens%20_Blue_Eddy.htm

and in particular his wide-leaved forms of Allium nutans (WOW!!!!):

http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/RhizomatousAlliums

What would I do to get my hands on those.….yes, I’m drooling……..not a pretty sight….thanks for listening!

[gote]

Your unknown looks rather different from senescens in my eyes. Could it be a hybrid with one of the more commonly cultivated ones like A porrum. If (and I do not know) A.porrum were tetraploid and senescens were diploid, a cross could give an infertile triploid form intermediate between the two.
Unfortunately i know nothing about old cultivated onions. This is all a wild suggestion.
Göte
 

[Robert G]

Stephen,

I just wanted to say this thread is great. Please keep doing it. The photos seem to be gone. Be careful... posting too many pictures of great looking salads might lead to unexpected lunch guests. Aside from the common culinary onions, our native Allium tricoccum is the only one I consume and grow. I think this will change now.

[Maggi Young]

The photos seem to be gone.

Just checked that about the photos...... they did take a bit longer than normal to appear, but they did arrive!

[Robert G]

Maggi and Stephen,

I am so happy. I got home and the photos are here. I was using my work computer and perhaps it was the government firewall stopping the pictures. This sort of thing is beyond my limited computer knowledge. By the way if my all seeing employer is out there it was on my lunch that is was viewing this forum, for the record.

[Stephenb]

OK, we’ll return to Alliums later. Staying in Scandinavia for the time being, I thought we’d look at two alpine species in the Polygonaceae found in the mountains here, both providing excellent trail snacks when walking in the mountains, which even children like. They have both been used by native peoples throughout their range (circumpolar) as survival food and I think that one of them could even be commercially interesting.

First off is Mountain Sorrel (Oxyria digyna), also known as Alpine Mountiansorrel (North America),  Fjellsyre (Norway), Ólafssúra (Iceland), Hapro (Finland), Juopmu (Sami/Lapp), Oxyrie de montagne (France), Alpen-Säuerling (Germany);  Banbare (Nepal) and Kyurba (Tibet).  As the wide spread of these names geographically suggest this  is a common mountain plant throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, occurring also at low elevations and on the coast in the far north and west, from Ireland, Scotland, Norway and even on the Norwegian arctic islands Bear Island, Jan Mayen as well as in Svalbard (Spitsbergen). It is found in damp places throughout, along rivers and associated with seabird cliffs in the lowlands.

I think it’s quite an attractive plant with its kidney-shaped leaves, and like its relative common sorrel Rumex acetosa, it has pleasant tasting slightly sour leaves, which are excellent in mixed salads. It has been prized by local peoples throughout its range including the high arctic Inuit people who would ate it traditionally raw or cooked in seal oil; in Greenland it was used like stewed Rhubarb, sweetened and with a little potato flour to thicken;   the Sami people in Scandinavia also ate it raw, fermented  or cooked it with other greens in reindeer milk, the Native Americans in the Rocky Mountains used it in salads and preserved this and other plants by fermentation. It is also found in the Sierra Nevada in California, and is apparently known there as backpacker’s salad. It is also frequently found there around old mining camps and it is not unlikely that miners encouraged (sowed?) and used the plants. It was also even used by locals as far away as Sikkim and Nepal.   

A couple of pictures of Oxyria in my garden follow. As you can see it produces a useful amount of leaf






You can also see Oxyria in the bottom left of this picture. Incidentally, the Meconopsis was “allowed” into my garden as I read that the seeds of some species had been used to produce an edible oil – my planted would probably have yielded one drop for my planned Meconopsis salad dressing….. 



No personal experience here as I’m scared of heights and my grandis died, but apparently the Sherpas in Nepal roast and pickle the seed of Meconopsis grandis! Anybody help out with some grandis seed as I've lost mine?

Any guesses as to the identity of the second alpine Polygonaceae which I'll post about next? People living in the  Norwegian mountains have survived famine years thanks to the knowledge of this plant’s edibility! Will post in a day or two…