Few garden plants are as bizarre and delightful as the Egyptian onion. Visitors to the garden often remark about the Egyptian onion’s unusual form, commenting that it is everything from “interesting” to “frightening.” Amusingly, one recent visitor thought it would provide excellent inspiration for a B-grade horror flick. “Call it ‘Attack of the Killer Onion,'” another said.

Also called “tree onion” or “walking onion,” the remarkable plant has an interesting life cycle that causes its bold and unusual appearance.

The perennial onion is hardy to Zone 4 and overwinters diligently in a diverse range of soil types. Bulbs are planted from spring to late summer. The bulb produces leaves in the first season. In the second season, bulbils work their way up from the base of the plant and emerge from the hollow stem of the onion. These immature bulbs top the stalklike leaves, form leaves of their own and eventually weigh down the parent stem. In time they drop to the ground and root in, extending the colony and range of the onions.

The bulbils atop the stems do indeed give the plant a rather freakish appearance. They also cause people to wonder whether the onion is edible. “I have some Egyptian onions,” one Bass Harbor reader recently wrote. “I have not been able to find out what – if any – parts are edible.”

After a bit of research, I found that the Egyptian onion (botanically known as Allium cepa) isn’t commercially cultivated on a significant scale and is used almost exclusively by home gardeners. Although it is perhaps used more as an ornamental than an edible plant, Egyptian onion indeed has culinary uses. Primarily used as a flavoring in pickling recipes, the small bulbs of the plant may be harvested in early spring and used as a green onion. The bulbils that emerge from the stem of the Egyptian onion may be harvested for propagation of new plants or may be consumed. Some references indicated that the bulbs of the parent plant can be quite strongly flavored and that the leaves can be used in salads as onion greens.

If you ask me, the Egyptian onion is downright fun to grow. The leaves of the plant emerge through the cool weather of early spring and add delightful form to the perennial bed or border. The Egyptian onion is one of those plants that grows quietly in the corner of the garden, unassumingly growing away until one day you suddenly realize that strange things are happening inside those hollow stems. Watching the bulbils develop and emerge is a horticultural wonder, an illustration of nature’s thrift and intelligence, and an excellent living conversation piece for the novice or most learned gardener.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.