Invasive alien wild garlic can grow rapidly
THE Three-cornered Garlic doesn't normally flower until April but this year a few hardy individuals are in bloom already together with daffodils, snowdrops, crocuses and other spring bulbs. Looking like a white Bluebell, the Three-cornered Garlic has suffered a bit of an identity crisis. For a long time it was known as the Three-cornered Leek; now its preferred name is the Three-cornered Garlic. Technically it is an onion.
Many parts of the plant are edible and the flavour lies somewhere in the middle ground between that of onion and garlic. It grows rapidly and thrives in waste places so it may often be seen taking over large patches of wayside verges, graveyards and copses. Ants are said to be the main agents of dispersal of its seed.
The ' three-cornered' part of its name is a very obvious field mark. In cross section, its stems are very sharply triangular or three-angled, a feature that becomes particularly noticeable when a section of stem is gently rolled between index finger and thumb.
It is an invasive weed, an alien from the western Mediterranean. Being native to warmer climes, it is particularly common along the frost-free south coast of Ireland. As one moves north the Mediterranean alien becomes scarcer. Though found in lowland coastal areas in the far north of Donegal, the plant is absent from large areas of the Midlands.
The flowers of the Three-cornered Garlic are white in colour. Bell-shaped like those of Bluebells, the flowers hang on one side of the three-cornered stems in clusters of anything as few as three to as many of fifteen. Each white 'petal' has a green stripe running along its length. These lines are the coloured mid veins of the 'petals'.
However, flowers of the Three-cornered Garlic do not have true petals. The petal-like flower segments are tepals. The term ' tepal' is used to describe a flower part that may be a petal or may be a sepal. Onions have six of them, three inner and three outer.
Underground, the plant has egg-shaped bulbs. All parts of the Three-cornered Garlic are edible both raw and cooked. Bulbs and chopped leaves are used in salads to give a taste stronger than that of spring onions but milder than that of garlic. Flowers are edible too and may be fried or used for decoration in salads.
Eating the invasive alien is one environmentally friendly way of helping to control its spread.
- JIM HURLEY
