Bulbs 1-4+, without rhizome, with or without basal bulbels, often clustered, ovoid, 1-2.5 × 0.6-3 cm; outer coats enclosing 1 or more bulbs, brownish or grayish, reticulate, cells fine-meshed, open, fibrous; inner coats whitish, cells vertically elongate, sometimes contorted, walls straight or ± sinuous. Leaves persistent, green at anthesis, 2-6, basally sheathing, sheaths extending less than 1/4 scape; blade solid, flat, channeled, not carinate, 20-50 cm × 1-7 mm, margins entire or denticulate, apex acute to obtuse. Scape persistent, usually solitary, erect, terete, 10-60 cm × 1-5 mm. Umbel persistent, erect, loose, 0-60-flowered, hemispheric to globose, bulbils unknown or flowering pedicels replaced at least in part by bulbils; spathe bracts persistent, 3-4, 3-7-veined, ovate to lanceolate, ± equal, apex acuminate, beakless. Flowers urceolate-campanulate, 4-8 mm; tepals erect or spreading, white to pink or lavender, lanceolate to elliptic, ± equal, withering in fruit and exposing capsule, midribs somewhat thickened, margins entire, apex obtuse to acute; stamens included; anthers yellow; pollen yellow; ovary, when present, crestless; style linear, ± equaling stamens; stigma capitate, unlobed or obscurely 3-lobed; pedicel 8-70 mm. Seed coat shining; cells each with minute, central papilla.

see Allium canadense var. canadense for additional information.

Bulb ovoid-conic, 1-3 cm, its coats fibrous-reticulate; stem erect, stout, 2-6 dm, leafy in the lower third; lvs elongate, flat, 2-4(-7) mm wide; bracts 2 or 3, broadly ovate, acuminate; fls when present pink or white, on pedicels 1-3 cm, often many or all of them replaced by sessile bulblets to 1 cm; tep withering in fr; fr not crested; seeds shining, finely alveolate, each alveolus with a minute central pustule; 2n=14, 21, 28. Open woods and prairies; N.B. to N.D., s. to Fla. and Tex. (A. mutabile) The common phase in our range is var. canadense, with many or all of the fls replaced by sessile bulblets, the fls, when developed, rarely producing fr. The strictly floriferous var. lavendulare (Bates) Ownbey & Aase occurs from Mo. to S.D., Okla., and n. Ark. Other floriferous vars. occur to the s. and w.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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