Thursday, 7 January 2016

:: allium ::

 Upon Phoebe's request we spent a happy hour or so in her school garden plot this afternoon, weeding, refreshing, replanting and generally enjoying being in a lovely place where small hands have toiled to create a hidden haven.
 The onions in someone's plot were flowering these spectacular blooms and the bees and bumblebees were all over them! 
In the process of looking up the latin/botanical name of the flowers I find interesting facts and new words - it is quite fun.  Today I discovered that the allium is a genus of 'monocotyledonous' flowering plants including leek, garlic, chives, onion, shallots, etc. Whew - that was a long word.
I also learned that while 'allium' is the Latin word for garlic, that the Greek word 'aleo' (to avoid) also has something to do with the etymology - as in avoidance of the smell of garlic. Interesting.

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