Foraging Wild Fruits Blog

The reader can likely notice a few of the characteristic differences between the wild onion versus the death camas. In particular, note the color of the flowers: white for the wild onion, and butter-yellow (although they can extend to white/off-white) for the death camas. Even more, allium flowers will take colors in the range of white-to-pink-to-purple, meaning that if ANY pink/purple hues are found on the flowers, it is likely an allium. Secondly, the flowers for the wild onion are bunched closely, originally emanating from a single papery bulb. The death camas flowers spread from the top few inches of the stem, and don't originate under a single bulb, rather a paintbrush-like collection of buds.

But...what if one wishes to harvest wild onion before it flowers? Herein, we come to the easiest way to distinguish the two.

Only onions (alliums) smell like onions (alliums).

That is, all one must do is

• break a leaf or stem, and crush it between one's fingers.

If the smell is of onions, garlic, chives, etc. the plant is an allium. To the right you can see me enjoying a wild onion stem after smelling that it was, in fact, wild onion. The taste is most similar to the green/fibrous part of a leek, perhaps mixed with a chive. They are best enjoyed in stews, to break up the fibers.