Little White Flowers

White Mystery Flowers

These delicate white flowers have been popping up at several places around the garden this spring.

We have no idea what they are, or how they came to be here, but they're very pretty.  The leaves in this photo are those of a Nasturtium and don't belong to the white flowers, which have long, narrow, strap-like leaves.  The flower clusters are on long thin stalks.

Flowers With Partial Leaf

I'm starting to think this may be a member of the onion family; yesterday I noticed a thin membrane clinging to the base of a couple of the flower clusters, and it reminded me of the flowers on the Leeks and the Bunching Onions we've had the last couple of years.  The flowers of those plants are covered with a membrane before it splits open and the flowers emerge.

We knew what those plants were because Cindy had planted them and expected them to emerge where she had put them.

However, she didn't plant these, especially the one that's emerging in the middle of a path covered with decomposed granite (DG), because there's no dirt there and there is a layer of weed blocking fabric under the DG.

A gift from the gophers?  Some ground squirrel's pantry?  The secret stash of whichever varmint stole the False Sea Onion bulb last year?  

We'll probably never know.

Bunching Onions

Bunching Onion Pod

I saw what I thought was a new leek blossom the other day, but Cindy says these plants are really Bunching Onions, not Leeks.

I was hoping for another repetition of the Grinch experience we had last summer when we let a leek blossom flower and go to seed (see: "Did Dr. Seuss Design This Plant?" ).

But this plant's pod was smaller and split open to reveal the flower much sooner than the leek did.  It's not as spectacular, but still looks interesting.

Bunching Onions are apparently from the same family as leeks and bulb onions, and you can use them instead of bulb onions.

Cindy is stealthily educating me to the taste of onion; I used to pick them out of food, and I still find that the taste of raw onion overwhelms the taste of whatever food it's with, but I'm gradually getting more used to the more subtle tastes of other members of the onion family, including the leeks and bunching onions.