Allium cratericola

Cascade onion

Family: Alliaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Cascade onion is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, northern and central Sierra Nevada Foothills, southern Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi Mountains, southeastern San Francisco Bay Area, south Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, and San Jacinto Mountains in open serpentine, volcanic, or granitic places at elevations of 300 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces delicate pink flowers in clusters of 20 to 30 blooms with pedicels 5 to 18 millimeters long. Growing with slender stems 3 to 10 centimeters tall, it emerges from a small ovoid bulb with distinctive outer layers. Its one to two leaves are approximately 1.5 to 4 times the stem length, ranging from flat to widely channeled. The small bulb has square-shaped cells arranged in two to three rows at its base, contributing to the plant's unique morphology.

Habitat: Open, serpentine, volcanic, or granitic places

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: 300-1800 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, n&ampc SNF, s SNH, Teh, se SnFrB, SCoRI, WTR, SnJt.

California counties: Ventura, Riverside, Napa, Trinity, Butte, Kern, Tuolumne, San Benito, Siskiyou, Mariposa, Madera, Nevada, Mendocino, Lake, Glenn, Amador, Tehama, El Dorado, Calaveras, Shasta, Sierra, Humboldt, Colusa, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.