Authors: L.  

Botanical Description

Bulbs slenderly conical, many on short rhizomes forming clumps. Stems usually about 20-25cm tall, but sometimes to twice this. Leaves up to but usually less than stems, cylindrical, hollow. Flowers more or less bell-shaped, 7-10mm long, sometimes more, lilac to pinkish or red-purple in very dense, almost spherical umbels, summer. Northern hemisphere, mainly in moistish habitats in grassland and amongst rocks, only on mountains in the south of its range. A variable species in the wild, but best known as chives in our herb gardens. Not really a rock garden plant but one of the very few culinary herbs almost worthy of a place there.