Fragrant yellow allium

Allium flavum, the fragrant yellow allium or small yellow onion, is a bulbous herbaceous perennial of the family Amaryllidaceae. It grows from a single small bulb roughly 10 to 15 mm across, sending up a slender, smooth flowering stem to about 40 cm tall accompanied by a few cylindrical, hollow basal leaves. In June and July the stem terminates in a loose, drooping then ascending umbel of bright yellow, narrow bell-shaped flowers carried on slender pedicels of unequal length; the inflorescence is enclosed in bud by a long-beaked papery spathe, and the flowers carry a pleasant fragrance from which the species takes its specific epithet. After flowering, small three-valved capsules release the seed. The species is native to dry, rocky and sunny habitats around the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas, with a range extending from France and Morocco eastwards through Turkey to Iran and Kazakhstan. It has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.