Egyptian Walking Onions

[galina]

Martin, thank you for this explanation and for taking the time to answer. Unfortunately it did not help me understand the difference between them. I hope you don't mind me restating my question and trying to be a little clearer:

Your climate it probably very different to here, but my walking onion topsets will grow into a spring onion lookalike in a single season, not into a topsetting walking onion. Only split bulbs will grow into topsetting walking onions in one season. However, hardneck garlics with few large bulbils will grow into proper bulbs with divided cloves from a 'seed' bulbil in one season. Using a 'seed' clove, the bulbs merely get a little larger. Hardnecks with lots of tiny pinhead bulbils, or softneck sidebolts, will not grow into a divided clove, a small round at best, most will just perish in the ground. Babbington's leek does not grow into a mature flowering plant from scales, bulbils (if that is the right term) nor from cloves in one season.

I 'get' that you say that onions have topsets and garlics have bulbils. My question is why? Is this is a linguistic convention or does it refer to an actual botanical difference? Also please would you tell us the correct equivalent term for Babbington's leek bulbils?

[ottawagardener]

So I did a google search and, according to botanical definitions, it seems that bulblet commonly refers to small bulbs produced at stem nodes, such as in lilies. Size does not seem to matter. Bulblets / bulbils also is used in garlic growing to refer to the little garlic bulbs produced at the top of the scape... herein lies the confusion. Topset on the other hand is most commonly used to refer to what onions, specifically walking onions, produce at the top of their scapes, as in top-setting onions. BUT, I have seen written: topsets are bulblets that... in reference to garlic and other alliums.

So there you have it. I would argue that in the strictest definition, a topset should be a bulb produced at the end of a scape and a bulblet a bulb produced at leaf axis... but language is messy so...

Better answers anyone?

[stevil]

From my European viewpoint, I'd never heard the word Topset until I joined SSE about 10 years ago. I'd always known the small bulbs that form in some Allium species instead of flowers as bulbils and that includes Garlic. However, I don't recall anyone referring to Egyptian Onion bulbils as bulbils or anything else for that matter... I think they were just referred to as those small onions that form instead of flowers... I suspect that bulbil is the correct botanical term for all of them...

[robertb]

I think you're probably right.

[galina]

Thank you Ottowagardener and Stevil