Wild leek

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More names for this plant

The Dakota and Anishinaabe were among the earliest people to name Minnesota’s plants and animals, as well as to understand them in relation to Minnesota’s climate and seasons. Those original names are still in use, and several are included on the Season Watch website. However, complete translations were not available.

Latin (or scientific name): Allium tricoccum

The scientific community has a convention of assigning agreed-upon Latin names to every kind of organism. Using scientific names helps people communicate confidently about the same organism and organize lifeforms based on how closely related they are.

French: Ail des bois

More common names: Ramp, small white leek, wild onion

Page contents

About the wild leek

Visual guide to phenology

More resources

In this woodland scene, the only green leaves are wild leak plants, which cover the forest floor into the distance.
A population of wild leeks in a woodland setting.
May 15, 2019, Lake County, Minnesota
Photo © Joe Walewski, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)
iNaturalist observation

About the wild leek

  • This herbaceous perennial sends up two to three long, shiny leaves in early spring. A single cluster of small, white flowers emerges at the end of a long stalk a few weeks after the leaves have withered away.
  • Wild leek can form dense understory stands in shady, woodland habitats. Near these wild leek clusters, note the onion-like smell in the air.
  • Wild leek has a long life cycle like many spring ephemerals. It can take three to seven years for a plant to produce seed. The seeds can also take up to two years to germinate once they are dispersed. Because of this, wild leek is at risk from human disturbance and over-harvesting.
  • Fun fact: The foliage and bulbs have a mild onion or garlic flavor and have been an important food source in many traditional Native American diets. Like many plants in the allium genus, it is also strongly anti-microbial and is used in traditional medicine.

Visual guide to phenology

Watch for the appearance of leaves, flowers, and fruits. Take notice of when flowers open and fruits ripen.

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Note to observers

This page explains general clues to watch for when observing wild leek phenology. However, this page does not explain how to identify this plant or collect data in a standardized way.

A deep snow drift sparkles in the sunlight, Poking up through the snow are the old seed heads of a wild leek plant.
About fifteen pale green shoots are poking up through damp leaf litter on the ground.
About twenty-five wild leek shoots are growing up from the leaf litter. The leaves are bright green and have pink sheathes around their base.
Several large, floppy leaves are now fully unfolded. At their base, the leaves have a slight reddish wash.
Four large leaves spread from a shared point. A reddish stem with a pod-shaped sheath is at the top of the stem. This bud contains flowers.
This close-up photo shows several (about twenty) pale green flower buds that are exposed as a papery sheath opens up.
The pale green flower buds are arranged in a globe-like cluster at the top of the wild leek's stem.
A close-up showing open flowers on a wild leek plant. The individual flowers have white petals, green centers, and small, spindly, white structures holding up pollen.
A close-up photo showing mostly spent flowers with faded or lost petals. At the center of many spent flowers are small, green structures that have a three-part symmetry.
This wild leek plant grows on the shady forest floor. It has fruits at the top of thin reddish stems, and its leaves are gone.
Close-up image of unripe fruit. The fruit are still mostly green, but are beginning to appear papery and look as though they will soon split open.
This wild leek seed head has ripe fruit. The ripe fruit are glossy black and become visible when the paper capsule splits open.
The structure holding fruits has turned tan and dry. It hold about thirty fruits that are globe-shaped and glossy black in color.

More resources

Wild leek (Allium tricoccum) in the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas

Wild leek (Allium tricoccum) in Nature's Notebook

 

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Co-author: Audrey Negro, Minnesota Master Naturalist