Allium siculum (Sicilian honey garlic)

Native to Europe, where it occurs from the Mediterranean to Romania. Allium siculum subsp. siculum occurs from southern France and Corsica to Italy (including Sicily). Allium siculum subsp. dioscoridis is native to eastern Romania, Bulgaria, the Crimea and western Turkey.

Allium siculum (Image: Leo Michels)

Allium siculum is a bulbous plant with narrow leaves 30–40 cm long, and forms an untidy clump at ground level. The leafless flowering stem is up to 120 cm tall, smooth and with a grey colour.

The pendulous flowers are borne in an umbel, each of which contains up to 30 individual flowers. The perianth segments (petals and sepals) are up to 17 mm long, and the inner segments have a single vein. The perianth (petals and sepals) is dull reddish in A. siculum subsp. siculum, and green and pink in A. siculum subsp. dioscoridis.

The fruiting heads are striking, with stiffly upright capsules covered by the papery remains of the perianth. The flattened seeds are 3 mm long.

A printed plate of Allium siculum subsp. dioscoridis from a watercolour drawing by Lilian Snelling (1955), taken from Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Image: RBG Kew)

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Editor: Martyn Rix) provides an international forum of particular interest to botanists and horticulturists, plant ecologists and those with a special interest in botanical illustration.

Now well over two hundred years old, the Magazine is the longest running botanical periodical featuring colour illustrations of plants. Each four-part volume contains 24 plant portraits reproduced from watercolour originals by leading international botanical artists. Detailed but accessible articles combine horticultural and botanical information, history, conservation and economic uses of the plants described.

Published for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing.
See the Wiley-Blackwell Subscription Information page for rates (for both print and online).

Allium siculum is a widespread species, though never common.

Allium siculum is grown as an ornamental.

The Millennium Seed Bank partnership aims to save plant life worldwide, focusing on plants under threat and those of most use in the future. Seeds are dried, packaged and stored at a sub-zero temperature in Kew's seed bank vault at Wakehurst.

Number of seed collections stored in the Millennium Seed Bank: Two. 

Allium siculum is easily cultivated in ordinary soil, in sun or light shade. It can produce abundant seeds and become weedy. Its unpleasant smell can be detected at some distance from the plant.

Allium siculum grows in the Director’s Garden at Kew.

Search Kew’s science databases for more information on this species

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (Wiley-Blackwell)

Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) – Allium siculum (as Nectaroscordum siculum)

BBC Plant finder - Allium siculum (as Nectaroscordum siculum)

Kew video: Replanting of the Director’s Garden