Largeflower Onion

Bulbs 1–5, without basal bulbels, ovoid, 1.5–2.5 × 1–2 cm; outer coats enclosing 1 or more bulbs, brown, reticulate, cells usually coarse-meshed, open, fibrous; inner coats whitish, cells vertically elongate and regular or obscure. Leaves persistent, green at anthesis, 2, sheathing; blade solid, channeled, semiterete, 8–20 cm × 1–3 mm, margins entire. Scape persistent, solitary, erect, terete or ± 4-angled, 5–20 cm × 1–4 mm. Umbel persistent, erect, compact to loose, 10–20-flowered, hemispheric to globose, bulbils unknown; spathe bracts persistent, 2–3, 3–5-veined, ovate to lanceolate, ± equal, apex acute to short-acuminate. Flowers campanulate, 8–12 mm; tepals spreading, pink with deeper pink or reddish midveins, lanceolate, ± equal, becoming papery in fruit, not investing capsule, margins entire, apex obtuse to acuminate, midrib scarcely thickened; stamens included; anthers yellow or purple; pollen yellow; ovary usually conspicuously crested; processes 6, central, usually connate in pairs across septa, ± erect, flattened, triangular, to 2 mm, margins entire, mostly well developed in fruit; style linear, equaling stamens; stigma capitate, unlobed or obscurely lobed; pedicel 5–20 mm. Seed coat shining; cells smooth, without central papillae. 2n = 14.

Ariz., Colo., N.Mex., Utah, Tex.

Flowering late Mar--Jun.

Desert plains and hills; 300--2500m.

Allium deserticola (M. E. Jones) Wooton & Standley; A. reticulatum Fraser ex G. Don var. deserticola M. E. Jones.

Allium macropetalum, the desert onion, is a species of wild onion native to the desert regions of southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is known from desert plains and hills in Sonora, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, at elevations up to 2500 m.

Allium macropetalum forms egg-shaped bulbs up to 2.5 cm long. Flowers are bell-shaped, pink to purple, up to 12 mm across, with yellow or purple anthers.