Allium neapolitanum

White garlic

Family: Alliaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

White garlic is a naturalized perennial found in northern coastal California, Sacramento Valley, central coastal areas, San Francisco Bay Region, and southern coastal regions in disturbed and urban spaces at elevations below 100 meters. Flowering from March to April, this plant produces white flowers in clusters of 10 to 25 blooms, with delicate elliptic perianth parts. Growing 20 to 60 centimeters tall with distinctively three-angled stems that have two slightly winged angles, it emerges from a small spheric bulb. Its leaves are 2 to 3 in number, flat and linear to narrowly lanceolate, typically shorter than the stem. The bulb has a crusted outer coating with square-shaped cells and thick walls, giving this non-native species its characteristic garlic-like structure.

Habitat: Disturbed +- urban places

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: < 100 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoR, ScV, CCo, SnFrB, SCo

California counties: Sacramento, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo, Solano, Yolo, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, Orange, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Ventura, Riverside, Butte, Mendocino, San Luis Obispo

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