Articles
OLD AND NEW CROPS WITHIN EDIBLE ALLIUM
Onions (A. cepa), garlic(A. sativum), shallots (A. ascalonicum), leeks (A. porrum) and Japanese bunching onions (A. fistulosum) are very old crops with worldwide distribution.
Onions and shallots originate from a group including the A. oschanini alliance.
The ancestors of garlic, leeks and Japanese bunching onions must have been closely related to A. longicupus, A. ampeloprasum and A. altaicum respectively.
The following Allium crops: rakkyo (A. chinese), ciboule vivace(A. ?), great headed garlic (A. ampeloprasum), ever ready onion (A. perutile), A. grayi and Grise de la Drôme, which are only grown in limited areas, have unknown ancestors.
Some other small Allium crops (A. proliferum and A. wakegi) are the result of ancient (spontaneous?) crosses, notably A. cepa x A. fistulosum and A. ascalonicum x A. fistulosum respectively.
Finally other minor edible Alliums are essentially wild species, notably: chinese chives (A. tuberosum), common chives (A. schoenoprasum), A. triquetrum, A. nutans, A. oleraceum, A. pskemense, A. aflatunense, A. hookeri, A. macrostemon. etc.
Some of them are not cultivated but mainly collected from the wild, e.g. A. nutans and A. macrostemon.
The lesser known species in question have, if possible, been characterized following standards like morphological description, geographic distribution, variability, etc.
Generally the genus Allium seems to be a very promising field of exploration because of the following reasons:
- The very high number (more than 600?) of available species;
- The highly appreciated specific culinary properties of many Allium crops;
- Because of therapeutic and medicinal properties the genus Allium could turn out to be a valuable source of so-called functional foods.