Thanks for all the responses! Allium aschersonium is commonly available here in nurseries, which is where I got mine. Conversely, I have never seen "common" Alliums like A gigantium here - go figure. My aschersonium was visited by a huge assortment of bees and wasps while blooming and seems to have set a lot of seed. My understanding is that clean seed can be sent to the US without permits. I got that info from the "Don't Pack a Pest" brochure at US Customs in JFK Airport. That was a few years ago and things may have changed, but if anyone wants a few seeds, let me know. I want to plant it as a potential crop for semi-arid areas. Nhu, I really appreciate the 4 year figure. It gives me an idea of what to expect. I would not think of collecting from the wild, except seeds. Interesting that I have only seen these tall Alliums (about 1 meter) individua;lly in the wild - never in groups like the smaller ones. By the way, Allium ampeloprasum is also native here. There are some ssp or varieties, one of which is leek - I wonder what happens if leek is not harvested and let to form a bulb? Another is what they call elephant garlic - the catalog of Nichol's Nursery in Oregon says they introduced it as a crop and gave it the elephant garlic name. I have not seen it wild here, but would sure like to. : ) Shmuel Silinsky Jerusalem, Israel zone 9 On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 6:44 PM, Colleen <silkie@frontiernet.net> wrote: > Thanks for the warning Peter. Actually I have not been too concerned about > invasiveness up to now because of the harshness of our climate. "Invasive" > has usually meant that the plant had enough vigor to actually grow here. > However, I don't take the warning lightly because the climate is changing > so > I am not being as cavalier as before and will take steps to plant whatever > I > may get with invasiveness in mind, thank you. For instance a bit of mint I > planted took years and years to develop a good enough plan to spread, at > all. Of course then it did a very good job and I am now pulling mint :) > > Colleen > NE Calif. > > -----Original Message----- > From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] > On Behalf Of Peter Taggart > Sent: Saturday, April 06, 2013 2:49 PM > To: Pacific Bulb Society > Subject: Re: [pbs] Species Alliums being edible? > > some of these allium species can be quite invasive... be cautious if you > have conditions in which they might spread. > Peter (UK) > > > 2013/4/5 Colleen <silkie@frontiernet.net>: > > > Roland, > > > > > > Where did you get your starts? > > > > > > Colleen > > > NE Calif. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ >