Medicinal Monday - Field Garlic - A Cool Temperature Perennial

Regardless of what you call it - wild garlic or field garlic, this pungent plant emerges in the spring and grows in clumps. It tends to grow faster than grass and left alone it will grow up to 18 inches tall. Field Garlic was introduced in colonial times and Native Americans found many medicinal and culinary uses for this flavorful and useful herb. Field Garlic is in the Lily family and can be found in Connecticut.

photo credit Jay Strumer

About Field Garlic

Field Garlic is a native of Europe that has been naturalized in America. It is a common lawn weed that spreads by seeds, aerial bulbils, and bulbs that plant themselves in the ground. It prefers the cool weather and its scape appears in the early spring and is comprised of bulbs and pink flowers with six stamens and a pistil that forms three fused carpels. The aerial bulbs grow amid the flowers and are usually tipped with a long slender leaf. After it blooms in the early summer, this plant goes dormant until the fall. The seeds are egg-shaped, dull black, and wrinkled.  It looks a lot like grass with long thin leaves that are hollow and resemble chives. They can be identified by their onion-like odor. 

Medicinal & Culinary Uses

Many Native American communities used the bulbs and flowers to flavor food. The leaves, bulbs, and flowers can be eaten cooked or raw.

The most common use of the whole plant by Native American communities is as a carminative, cathartic, diuretic, blood purifier, and expectorant. The Cherokee also used this plant as an ear medicine to remove deafness. They also made a tincture and gave it to children to prevent worms and to treat colic.  The Mahuna would rub this plant all over their bodies to prevent insect and poisonous snake bites. The Rappahannock chewed the blubs to treat high blood pressure and to relieve shortness of breath.

photo credit Doug McGrady

Did You Know...

When cows eat this plant, their milk takes on a disagreeable flavor.

Field Garlic can also contaminate wheat by altering its flavor to a mild garlic taste.

Other common names for this plant are wild garlic, scallions, crow garlic, and stag's garlic.

In the U.S. it is considered a weed.

This plant is poisonous to dogs and other mammals when eaten in large quantities.

Field Garlic contains sulfur compounds (which give them their onion flavor) that help reduce cholesterol levels.

The juice of this plant has been used as a moth repellent.

There is one look alike to field garlic and that is the Star of Bethlehem.