page_title: Allium
section_title: Cultivation
hierarchical_section_title: Allium / Cultivation
caption_attribution_description: English: Selection of cultivated Alliums at the BBC Gardeners' World show, National Exhibition Centre, near Birmingham, England.
context_page_description: Allium is a genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants that includes hundreds of species, including the cultivated onion, garlic, scallion, shallot, leek, and chives. The generic name Allium is the Latin word for garlic, and the type species for the genus is Allium sativum which means "cultivated garlic".
  Linnaeus first described the genus Allium in 1753. Some sources refer to Greek ἀλέω by reason of the smell of garlic. Various Allium have been cultivated from the earliest times, and about a dozen species are economically important as crops, or garden vegetables, and an increasing number of species are important as ornamental plants.
  The decision to include a species in the genus Allium is taxonomically difficult, and species boundaries are unclear. Estimates of the number of species are as low as 260, and as high as 979.
  Allium species occur in temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere, except for a few species occurring in Chile, Brazil, and tropical Africa. They vary in height between 5 cm and 150 cm. The flowers form an umbel at the top of a leafless stalk. The bulbs vary in size between species, from small to rather large.
context_section_description: Many Allium species have been harvested through human history, but only about a dozen are still economically important today as crops or garden vegetables.
caption: Selection of cultivated alliums displayed at the BBC Gardeners' World Live show
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