''Allium ursinum'', known as wild garlic, ramsons, cowleekes, cows's leek, cowleek, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, Eurasian wild garlic or bear's garlic, is a

bulb In botany, a bulb is a short underground 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 ...

ous perennial

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the amaryllis family,

Amaryllidaceae 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 amaryl ...

. It is native to Eurasia, where it grows in moist woodland.GRIN-CA
, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada It is a wild relative 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 ...

and

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

, all belonging to the same genus, ''

Allium ''Allium'' is a large genus of monocotyledonous flowering plants with around 1000 accepted species, making ''Allium'' the largest genus in the family Amaryllidaceae and among the largest plant genera in the world. Many of the species are edible, ...

''. There are two recognized subspecies: ''A. ursinum'' subsp. ''ursinum'' and ''A. ursinum'' subsp. ''ucrainicum''.

Etymology

The Latin specific name ''ursinum'' translates to 'bear' and refers to the supposed fondness of the

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

for the bulbs; folk tales describe the bears consuming them after awakening from hibernation. Another theory is that the "''ursinum''" may refer to

Ursa Major Ursa Major, also known as the Great Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear", referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa M ...

, as ''A. ursinum'' was perhaps one of the most northerly distributed ''Allium'' species known to the

ancient Greeks Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically re ...

, though this hypothesis is disputed. Common names for the plant in many languages also make reference to bears. Cows love to eat them, hence the modern vernacular name of cows's leek. In Devon, dairy farmers have occasionally had the milk of their herds rejected because of the garlic flavour imparted to it by the cows having grazed upon the plant. Ramsons is from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

word ''hramsa'', meaning "garlic". There is evidence it has been used in British cuisine since the

Celtic Britons The Britons ( *''Pritanī'', , ), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons, were the Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages, at which point they diverged into the Welsh, ...

over 1,500 years ago. Early healers among the Celts, Gaels, and Teutonic tribes and ancient Romans were familiar with the wild herb who called it ''herba salutaris'', meaning 'healing herb'.

Description

''Allium ursinum'' is a bulbous, perennial herbaceous

monocot Monocotyledons (), commonly referred to as monocots, (Lilianae ''sensu'' Chase & Reveal) are flowering plants whose seeds contain only one Embryo#Plant embryos, embryonic leaf, or cotyledon. A monocot taxon has been in use for several decades, but ...

, that reproduces primarily by seed. The narrow bulbs are formed from a single leaf base and produce bright green entire, elliptical leaves up to long by wide with a petiole up to long. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is an

umbel 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 ...

of six to 20 white flowers, lacking the bulbils produced by some other ''Allium'' species such as '' Allium vineale'' (crow garlic) and '' Allium oleraceum'' (field garlic). The flowers are star-like with six white

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s, about in diameter, with stamens shorter than the perianth. It flowers in the British Isles from April to June, starting before deciduous trees leaf in the spring. The flower stem is triangular in cross-section and the leaves are broadly lanceolate, similar to those of the toxic lily of the valley ('' Convallaria majalis'').

Similarity to poisonous plants

Plants that may be mistaken for ''A. ursinum'' include

lily of the valley Lily of the valley (''Convallaria majalis'' ), sometimes written lily-of-the-valley, is a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring. It is native throughout the cool temperate No ...

, '' Colchicum autumnale'', '' Arum maculatum'', and '' Veratrum viride'' or '' Veratrum album'', all of which are poisonous. In Europe, where ramsons are popularly harvested from the wild, people are regularly poisoned after mistakenly picking lily of the valley or ''Colchicum autumnale''.Risk of mix-up with bear's garlic - BfR warns pickers about fatal consequences of mistaking free-growing poisonous plants for bear's garlic, German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment; 2005
/ref> Grinding the leaves between the fingers and checking for a garlic-like smell can be helpful, but if the smell remains on the hands, one can mistake a subsequent poisonous plant for a safe one. When the leaves of ''A. ursinum'' and '' Arum maculatum'' first sprout, they look similar, but unfolded ''Arum maculatum'' leaves have irregular edges and many deep veins, while ramsons leaves are convex with a single main vein. The leaves of lily of the valley are in pairs, dull green, and come from a single reddish-purple stem, while the leaves of ''A. ursinum'' each have their own stem, are shiny when new, and are bright green.

Distribution and habitat

It is native to Europe and Asia, where it grows in moist woodland. It can be found in temperate Europe from Ireland east to the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region spanning Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is situated between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, comprising parts of Southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Caucasus Mountains, i ...

. It is common in much of the lowlands of the British Isles with the exception of the far north of Scotland,

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

and

Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

. The ''ursinum'' subspecies is found in western and central Europe, while the ''ucrainicum'' subspecies is found in the east and southeast. It grows in

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

woodlands with moist soils, preferring slightly acidic conditions. In the British Isles, colonies are frequently associated with bluebells (''

Hyacinthoides non-scripta ''Hyacinthoides non-scripta'' (formerly ''Endymion non-scriptus'' or ''Scilla non-scripta'') is a bulbous perennial plant found in Atlantic areas from the north-western part of the Iberian Peninsula to the British Isles, and also frequently used ...

''), especially in ancient woodland. It is considered to be an ancient woodland indicator species.

Ecology

As its name suggests, ''A. ursinum'' is an important food for brown bears. The plant is also a favourite of

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

. ''A. ursinum'' is the primary larval host plant for a specialised hoverfly, '' Portevinia maculata'' (ramsons hoverfly). The flowers are pollinated by

bees Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamil ...

Uses

All parts of ''A. ursinum'' are edible. The leaves can be used as salad, herb, boiled as a vegetable, in soup, or as an ingredient for a sauce that may be a substitute for pesto in lieu of basil. Leaves are also often used to make garlic butter. In Russia the stems are preserved by salting and eaten as a salad. A variety of Cornish Yarg cheese has a rind coated in wild garlic leaves. The leaves can be pickled in the same way as '' Allium ochotense'' known as mountain garlic in Korea. The bulbs can be used similarly to garlic cloves, and the flowers are also edible. Parts of the plant can be used for preparing Van herbed cheese, a speciality of the Van province in Turkey. Popular dishes using the plant include pesto, soups, pasta, cheese, scones and Devonnaise. The leaves are also used as fodder. Cows that have fed on ramsons give milk that tastes slightly of garlic, and butter made from this milk used to be very popular in 19th-century Switzerland. The first evidence of the human use of ''A. ursinum'' comes from the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic i ...

settlement of Barkær (Denmark), where an impression of a leaf has been found. In the Swiss

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

settlement of Thayngen-Weier ( Cortaillod culture), a high concentration of

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by most types of flowers of seed plants for the purpose of sexual reproduction. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced Gametophyte#Heterospory, microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm ...

from ''A. ursinum'' was found in the settlement layer, interpreted by some as evidence for use of the plant as fodder.

Herbal remedy

''Allium ursinum'' has been credited with many medicinal qualities and is a popular homeopathic ingredient. It is often used for treating cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive problems, as well as for the sterilisation of wounds. Various minerals are found in much higher amounts in ''Allium ursinum'' than in clove garlic. It is sometimes called the "magnesium king" of plants because of the high levels of this mineral found in the leaves.

Gallery

File:Daslook (Allium ursinum) d.j.b 07.jpg, Flower bud File:Daslook (Allium ursinum) d.j.b 02.jpg, Young flowers File:Daslook (Allium ursinum) d.j.b 05.jpg, File:Allium ursinum (Bärlauch) - Blüte.jpg, File:Allium ursinum2.jpg, File:Allium ursinum sl1.jpg, Fruit with seeds File:AlliumUrsinumAspekt.jpg, Ramsons in a forest

References

External links

Tutin, T.G. 1957. Biological flora of the British Isles: ''Allium ursinum''. Journal of Ecology 45(3) pp.1003-1010.
* Ramsons at Gernot Katzer'

* * {{Authority control ursinum Garlic Flora of Europe Herbs Medicinal plants of Asia Medicinal plants of Europe Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus