Musings

Monday, April 27, 2015

Ramsons or Wild Garlic

Unlike garlic mustard, which only smells when crushed or bruised, wild garlic, ramsons or Allium ursinum does smell when you get close to it.
Its name derives from the fact that brown bears are keen on it and will dig up the bulbs. Similarly wild boar.
The flower stems are weakly triangular in cross section and the flower heads do not contain bulbils (like, for example, wild onion or crow garlic). 
It is an ancient woodland indicator in many parts of the country, often associated with bluebells. All parts of the plant are edible although apparently people are regularly poisoned through misidentifying lily-of-the-valley and wild arum as ramsons (which even as an amateur botanist I find surprising).
Note the papery bract.

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