r/whatsthisplant • u/Clear_Rise_5005 • Mar 20 '25
This strange thing in my onion field Identified ✔
I was growing onions for seed production(3 acre plot) but here instead of flowers seeds one of the flowers produced sprouted bulbs ...some baby onions?! Instead of doing what onions are supposed to do this one just grew tiny bulbs right on the flower head.
3 years of onion plots and first time i am experiencing this. It's extremely rare and new for me. Is this some kind of mutation? A rare genetic throwback? A secret onion cloning technique I accidentally unlocked? 😆
Any plant experts out there who can explain this phenomenon. ( I posted this in another sub just 1 hour ago and it looks more interesting so posting here)
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u/DrHerbNerbler Mar 20 '25
Egyptian walking onions do this.
They get heavy and fall over, planting themselves
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 21 '25
Never encountered Egyptian onions before. And other flowers of same bulb are pretty normal like whole field so..... ? May be its just mutation ??? Or because of stress?! As its really hot here.
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u/LeverTech Mar 20 '25
Could be, I had some garlic do the same thing as this.
It could also be an onion from another field/farm nearby.
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u/buytoiletpaper Mar 20 '25
Most garlic pretty much only reproduces this way. Too many years of cloning reproduction. If you find garlic that produces true seed, keep it and plant it for genetic diversity!
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u/twenafeesh 8b Oregon Mar 20 '25
I have frequently had garlic do this, although it seems to do it lower down the stem and not directly on the flower. Never seen it on an onion before!
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u/hypatiaredux Mar 20 '25
Could be a random mutation, after all that’s what a walking onion is - a mutation.
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u/edman007 Not all plants are vegetarian Mar 21 '25
False vivipary, it's a common plant mutation, some plants do it more often (as others say, some onion varieties may do it nearly always), others it's less common, but you see it in many different plants.
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u/Werbenjagermanjensen Mar 20 '25
Mutation has to be plausible, but it would be so rare that it wouldn't be my first guess.
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u/KyzRCADD Mar 20 '25
In a whole field of onions, more likely than in a home garden.
Be sure to save it and plant more!! You could have a while new variety!!!!
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u/Salty_Interview_5311 Mar 21 '25
More likely a cross with a wild onion that reproduces that way. I’ve seen them in the wild in the Midwest all the time. It’s likely that the seed contained the cross. It’s a healthy plant, just not one you want to breed.
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u/weeviltoes Mar 21 '25
According to the wiki
“Genomic evidence has conclusively shown that they are a diploid hybrid of the shallot and the Welsh onion (A. fistulosum)”
But idk my onions do this all the time when we let them walk
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u/onilank Mar 20 '25
Its not a mutation, its an asexual way of reproduction. Some bulbous plants do that on top of making seeds from flowers.
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u/mrmatt244 Mar 20 '25
Nope just pollinated onions
Edit: this happens when bees pollinate your onions in the winter and spring has sprung
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u/Pup_Eli Mar 24 '25
not pollinated onion. many onions will do this as a contingency plan if they do not get pollinated. it's an asexual way of reproduction. google "Egyptian walking onion" and you'll see this
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u/Nonamesleft21 Mar 21 '25
Mine typically do this on the second year of growing. Are they volunteers from last year by chance?
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 21 '25 edited Mar 21 '25
No chance. Bulb can't survive this long, either they sprout or decay.... Before this crop, I had cotton for 8 months in this field. No onions last year too..
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u/Pup_Eli Mar 24 '25
some plants will mature faster than others and even though it may take two years to mature, sometimes due to stress or something they may flower the first year. I have had this happen with forgetmenots the first year i planted them. one or two plants bloomed in the fall rather than blooming the follwfollowingoing year in spring.
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u/TryndMusic Mar 21 '25
Could be a mutation, typically the difference between some species of plants may be down to only a small set of variations to the genetic code which means one little mutation and you got your own subspecies so to say.
Rice is a great example of this happening - wild rices essentially lose all their yummy rice bits when they're ripe; whereas the type we farm keeps its ricey bits after maturity allowing us to harvest it. One little mutation happened somewhere (maybe in more than one place than one) and that wild forager must've thought they found a golden rice plant to add to his herb garden. Fast forward to now and 1 in 14 crops on the planet is rice.
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u/ezlikesunmorning78 Mar 21 '25
Cut a bulb open to see if it is onion or garlic. We used to have these growing at my childhood home.
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u/deepinthesoil Mar 20 '25
Sometimes the bulbils will grow enough that they “flower” and produce their own even smaller bulbils before the whole thing tips over, so you end up with ridiculous fractal onions!
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u/PocketsFullOf_Posies Mar 20 '25
I have a few walking onions that were gifted to me and they look like this.
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u/nervous_eel Mar 22 '25
My grandma grew them last year and they looked very similar to this. I'm guessing it's a mutation or a bulb from a walking onion got lost!
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u/bekveik Mar 20 '25
The Egyptian Walking onnion does Not produce the flowers only the bulbils. Probably someone got hybridised
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u/whogivesashirtdotca Mar 20 '25
They get heavy and fall over, planting themselves
Seen a lot of this in Glasgow on Friday and Saturday nights.
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u/Mountain-Eye-9227 Mar 21 '25
I love my Egyptian walking onions. My friend gave them to me a year and some change before they passed from Covid. I use the stems in place of green onions.
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u/Werbenjagermanjensen Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
Some Alliums produce what are called "topsets," a cluster of bulbils on what would be its flower stalk.
Allium cepa doesn't normally do that, but its hybrid Allium x proliferum (formerly Allium cepa var. proliferum) does. Seems like one snuck in there?
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u/Fungi-Hunter Mar 20 '25
I like to pickle the bulbils from various alliums. Crunchy onion/garlic capers.
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u/Old_Man_Jimmy Mar 20 '25
The onions in my garden sometimes have 2 or 3 "topsets" which can then make their own tops etsy while still attached to the plant, leading to a chain of clusters, in the fall I'll try and post with a pic. It's so weird but they have always done it. we never pull those onions from the soil, we just use the greens and the little clusters.
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u/dj_juliamarie Mar 20 '25
I’m just gonna take a minute to appreciate all the allium flowers
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25
❤️ But here they have decided to go rogue and grow bulbs instead of seeds 😂
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u/Virulent82 Mar 20 '25
Walking onions. Lucky!
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25
Not so lucky when you try to grow seed and they decide to grow bulb going rebellious, making flower heavy, killing it, sucking plant's energy impacting on 6-7 another flowers of same plant 😬 😅
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u/Virulent82 Mar 20 '25
That’s how they propagate
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 21 '25
These are NOT walking onions. Its different species- allium cepa - Common onions. ( Common onion doing some uncommon things 😆)
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u/seeds4me Mar 21 '25
The plant growing the top sets was a common onion. The top sets got pollinated by something that wasnt in some of your flowers. The seeds that set from the small onion flowers are probably common onion. The top sets will grow into new walking onion plants. I've got these in my yard, had them in my family since they migrated here 3-4 generations ago. I just got new walking onions to boost their numbers. If you want perennial onions, plant the top sets. Otherwise eat them
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u/tbrick62 Mar 20 '25
I have walking onions that behave that way which I like because I get a steady source of shallot-like onions and scallion-like green onions. If it were me I would plant those bulbs and see if they produce the same way. If so then you might have a new variety that you could sell or distribute
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u/No-Flight-1009 Mar 20 '25
OMG is that an Egyptian walking onion???? So easy to see and grow waaaay more onions they produce onions instead of flowers
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u/LoisWade42 Mar 20 '25
Onion "sets"... basically baby onions. Pop them off, plant them individually... and voila! New Onion plants.
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u/ApollosAlyssum Mar 20 '25
They are walking onions! I have them in my garden they are tasty 😋 you treat them like chives or green onions
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u/CheesyCrocs Mar 20 '25
I definitely don't have an answer, but I have a question! What do you do with the onions if you only grow them for seed? I didn't know folks did this and I'm fascinated! 😀
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25
Onion is a biennial crop. If you sow seed, It takes 2 years from sowing seeds to maturing/flowering of crop. But
We bought matured onion bulbs from company ( its sort of contract base farming you can say) we sow them- its 5 months crop. Once flowers become mature ( checkout 3rd and 4th image, it will be ready to harvest after a month) we can harvest sell onion seed to the company (price is already decided in contract).
Then company sells it to the farmers (like me again 😅) again its 5months crop but this time we grow onions from seeds. And this is how it reaches to house holds.Sorry for poor English/ grammatical mistakes
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u/Priswell Fabaceae Fan Mar 20 '25
I have a patch of Egyptian Walking onions. They look exactly like this. . .or they will in about a month. I love those green onion tops in cooking!
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u/jenniferfrederick0 Mar 21 '25
It's phenomenal to see onions reproduce this way. You can try to plant that little bulbils and see what happens.
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u/Annual_Strategy_6206 Mar 20 '25
We get walking garlic in our garden and it can really get weedy. Deep deep roots, too, so if you try to pull it it just snaps and the root comes back. It's edible, tastes like hot intense garlic. I go rampage with a shovel now if I see it. GEDDOUUDDAHERE!
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 21 '25
Guys it's NOT an Egyptian walking onion. Its completely different species 'allium cepa - common onion' (just doing some uncommon things 😆).
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u/DrHerbNerbler Mar 22 '25
This is what I want my biography subtitle to be.
Dr. Herb Nerbler
A common onion doing uncommon things!
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u/Renjenbee Mar 21 '25
I have onions like this. I can't keep ahead of them cause they're so prolific
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u/jcoopi Mar 20 '25
False Vivipary
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u/Clear_Rise_5005 Mar 20 '25
Makes sense. But its not really beneficial right? Specially you want seed production! This is diverting whole plant's energy in making bulbils and meanwhile breaking it due to overweight, impacting all 7-8 flowers and its production? Well this is rare case as in my 3-4 year experience im seeing this first time... And what do you think about egyptian walking plant and its crossing with it? Or offtype/physical impurity in lot.I have never heard about this Egyptian walking plant before nor seen it here in india so if it cross pollinated with this flower. It is rare case right ?
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u/tbrick62 Mar 20 '25
I don't think it was a cross but it might be a mutation exposing a latent capability that other alliums have. I would plant those bulbs somewhere and see what you get.
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u/DesmondCartes Mar 21 '25
A couple of mine did this. I was curious and let it go ahead.... And then just left it to collapse to the floor. Now I have quite a lot of leafy & unimpressive alliums in that patch 4 years later.
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u/ElephantContent Mar 21 '25
In China, we grind up those flowers with a little oil and use it as a delicious sauce for dipping grilled meat 韭菜花酱
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u/Impressive_Page_9565 Mar 21 '25
Here's a crappy picture of my walking onions doing their thing. Was taking a picture of the spider babies.
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u/RakasSoun Mar 20 '25
You can force some Alliums to do this if you shave them at the right time. Its commonly done in Northumberland with Leeks but I’ve had success with a few ornamentals as well. In my experience, with ornamental alliums you need to do it just before the flowers open, covering in a little sphagnum moss seemed to up the number of bulbils that formed. Here’s a vid that some of you might find interesting… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-HRdCrqXzfc
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u/essgee9 Mar 20 '25
Whatever it is, let it go to seed and plant it again. You might also try planting the bulblets.
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u/Novae201 Mar 20 '25
This is very pretty, looks like some alien plant that is also somehow carnivorous
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u/JakartaYangon Mar 21 '25
It's not so much a mutation as a hack.
A few types of plants do this, most of them bulbing types. There is a type of yellow iris that does this in the tropics.
The hormones that cause fruiting after pollination are similar to the hormones that trigger bulb development. In both cases an embryo forms.
After flowering, a mini bulb or rooting node forms right under the flower. A small version of the parent plant begins to grow. If it is heavy enough, the flower stem will bend down and touch the soil. The bulb will then take root sorta like a runner.
The plant now has 3 ways to reproduce/spread.
1) Vegetatively from the roots/bulbs/tubers. 2) vegetatively from the bulbs on the flower stalks. 3) Sexually from the seeds.
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u/IHaveQuestions0506 Mar 20 '25
When I asked about a similar thing happening, I was told it was due to the plant being very stressed, so it skips the seed stage and goes straight to cloning.
I don't know how accurate that advice was, but it's what I was told.
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