Carlo wrote: Cipolline, cipollotto and cipolla all refer to onions. Cipollina (-ine for plural) refers to scallions which come in round and flat forms." Thanks for the Italian lesson, Carlo. So, all those American seed catalogs and food writers who use the name cipollini have either invented a new word, or do not mean it to be an Italian word, or have changed the gender of the word. And they are all copying each other's mistakes (or are similarly creative). Or, given the diversity of Italian, is cipollini a regional form? When you write that scallions come in round and flat forms, that raises a question. Do your round and flat refer to the bulb shape? If so, what is the Italian term for the non-bulbing forms? It is the non-bulbing forms which I know as scallions. The bulbing forms are to me green onions. This word scallion is disappearing from commercial use from what I can see. By the look of it, it originally referred to shallots (whose old name was Allium ascalonicum - you can see the origin of the word scallion in that). Does the practice of calling shallots scallions survive anywhere? And how should we pronounce cipolline? Che-pol-LEE-nay? And are cipollotto the really big ones? Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 where I'm trying to know my onions. My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/