View in other NatureServe Network Field Guides
NatureServe
Montana
Utah
Wyoming
Idaho
Wisconsin
British Columbia
South Carolina
Yukon
California
New York
Geyer's Bulbil Onion - Allium geyeri var. tenerum
General Description
Bulbs narrowly ovoid, often clustered; outer coat fibrous, net-like. Scapes terete, 10–50 cm. Leaves 2 or 3, channeled, 1–3 mm wide, persistent. Umbel hemispheric or narrower, with a mixture of flowers and ovoid bulbils 3–6 mm long; pedicels 5–12 mm long; bracts 2 or 3, ovate, acute to apiculate. Flowers white to pink; tepals 5–7 mm long; ovary with small crests adjacent to the style; stamens included. Seed surface minutely roughened (adapted from
Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).
Diagnostic Characteristics
Variety tenerum is easily distinguished from the typical variety by the presence of bulbils in the inflorescence.
Species Range
Montana Range
Range Descriptions
Native
Range Comments
BC and AB south through OR, NV, AZ and NM and all of the Rocky Mountain states (Kartesz 2009).
Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 4
(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version)
Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density
Recency
(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)
Ecology
POLLINATORS The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap:
Bombus bifarius,
Bombus centralis,
Bombus flavifrons,
Bombus huntii,
Bombus melanopygus,
Bombus sylvicola,
Bombus occidentalis, and
Bombus bohemicus (Macior 1974, Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Miller-Struttmann and Galen 2014, Williams et al. 2014).
Stewardship Responsibility
References
- Literature Cited AboveLegend:
View Online Publication
Colla, S.R. and S. Dumesh. 2010. The bumble bees of southern Ontario: notes on natural history and distribution. Journal of the Entomological Society of Ontario 141:39-68.- Koch, J., J. Strange, and P. Williams. 2012. Bumble bees of the western United States. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, Pollinator Partnership. 143 p.
- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
- Macior, L.M. 1974. Pollination ecology of the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Melanderia 15: 1-59.
- Miller-Struttmann, N.E. and C. Galen. 2014. High-altitude multi-taskers: bumble bee food plant use broadens along an altitudinal productivity gradient. Oecologia 176:1033-1045.
- Thorp, R.W., D.S. Horning, and L.L. Dunning. 1983. Bumble bees and cuckoo bumble bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Bulletin of the California Insect Survey 23:1-79.
- Williams, P., R. Thorp, L. Richardson, and S. Colla. 2014. Bumble Bees of North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 208 p.
- Additional ReferencesLegend: View Online Publication
Do you know of a citation we're missing?- Culver, D.R. 1994. Floristic analysis of the Centennial Region, Montana. M.Sc. Thesis. Montana State University, Bozeman. 199 pp.
- Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
- Web Search Engines for Articles on "Geyer's Bulbil Onion"
