''Allium burlewii'' is a species of

wild onion Wild onion can refer to * any uncultivated species in the genus ''Allium'', especially: **''Allium bisceptrum'' ** ''Allium canadense'' ** ''Allium tricoccum'' ** ''Allium validum'' ** ''Allium vineale'' * ''Asphodelus tenuifolius'' * ''Cyperus bulb ...

known by the common name Burlew's onion. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where grows in the

granitic A granitoid is a generic term for a diverse category of coarse-grained igneous rocks that consist predominantly of quartz, plagioclase, and alkali feldspar. Granitoids range from plagioclase-rich tonalites to alkali-rich syenites and from quart ...

soils of several of the central and southern mountain ranges from

Riverside Riverside may refer to: Places Australia * Riverside, Tasmania, a suburb of Launceston, Tasmania Canada * Riverside (electoral district), in the Yukon * Riverside, Calgary, a neighbourhood in Alberta * Riverside, Manitoba, a former rural m ...

and

San Bernardino San Bernardino (; Spanish language, Spanish for Bernardino of Siena, "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a ...

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

and Monterey Counties, usually between 6,000 and 10,000 feet above sea level.Flora of North America
/ref> ''Allium burlewii'' is a short-stemmed onion, from an oval-shaped

bulb In botany, a bulb is structurally a short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs duri ...

, with a scape rarely taller than 20 cm. It has a single long, pointed leaf up to 35 cm long. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

contains up to 20 dark-veined purple flowers each up to a centimeter long with dark purple

anthers The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

.Davidson, Anstruther. 1916. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 15(1): 17.

References

burlewii Flora of California Onions Plants described in 1916 {{Allium-stub