Luscious leek for lunch

13 Sunday Apr 2025

Posted by sconzani in flowers, insects, spring, wildflowers

Tags

Allium triquetrum, Dark-edged bee-fly, Hairy-footed flower bee, insects on Three-cornered leek, solitary bee, Three-cornered garlic, Three-cornered leek

Today’s short local meander was rather smelly, firstly with swathes of Wild garlic (which will feature in an upcoming post) and also this lush area of Three-cornered leek (or Three-cornered garlic, Allium triquetrum), which was attracting lots of insects.

First up, a tiny solitary bee.

Then, several Dark-edged bee-flies came hovering in to view, long spiky legs dangling below and long tongues poking in to the flowers to feed.

And then this brute showed up, the first Hairy-footed flower bee I’ve managed to photograph this year, just.

26/366 Three-cornered leek

26 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers, winter

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Allium triquetrum, British wildflowers, Onion weed, Three-cornered leek

200125 three cornered leek (3)

In New Zealand we call this plant Onion weed but, here in Britain, its common name is Three-cornered leek. As its scientific name, Allium triquetrum, indicates, this bulbous plant is part of the garlic and onion family, the Alliums, and triquetrum refers to the triangular shape of its flower stem.

200125 three cornered leek (2)

In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that this smelly plant was ‘introduced to Britain in 1752’ and ‘began to escape into shady hedge-banks and churchyards in Cornwall in the 1860s. By the 1930s it was in Devon’ and, in 1995, Mabey found it in the Chilterns, near London. Obviously, it’s spread even further since then, as it’s jumped the border and is thriving here in Wales. These were my first Three-cornered leek flowers for 2020.

200125 three cornered leek (1)