''Allium galanthum'' is an

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

n species of

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

in the

amaryllis family The Amaryllidaceae are a family of herbaceous, mainly perennial and bulbous (rarely rhizomatous) flowering plants in the monocot order Asparagales. The family takes its name from the genus ''Amaryllis'' and is commonly known as the amaryllis fam ...

, commonly called the snowdrop onion.Agroatlas, Interactive Agricultural Ecological Atlas of Russia and Neighboring Countries, Allium galanthum Kar. et Kir. - Snowdrop onion
coclor photo, description in English It is native to

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

Altay Krai Altai Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai). It borders, clockwise from the west, Kazakhstan (East Kazakhstan Region, Abai Region and Pavlodar Region), Novosibirsk Oblast, Novosibirsk and Kemerovo Oblast, ...

, and

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

. It grows at elevations of .Flora of China v 24 p 194 实葶葱 shi ting cong ''Allium galanthum''
/ref> ''Allium galanthum'' forms a cluster of bulbs, each up to in diameter. Scapes are up to tall. Leaves are tubular, about half as long as the scapes.

Umbels UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) is a logically organized knowledge graph of 34,000 concepts and entity types that can be used in information science for relating information from disparate sources to one another. It was retired ...

are spherical with a large number of white flowers.line drawing of ''Allium galanthum'', Flora of China Illustrations vol. 24, fig. 215, 1-4
/ref> ''Allium galanthum'' is

edible An edible item is any item that is safe for humans to eat. "Edible" is differentiated from " eatable" because it does not indicate how an item tastes, only whether it is fit to be eaten. Nonpoisonous items found in nature – such as some mushroo ...

and reportedly has medicinal uses.

References

galanthum Flora of temperate Asia Onions Plants described in 1842 Medicinal plants Edible plants {{Allium-stub