What on earth is this flower?

[Jeanied]

I have a mystery bulb growing in a patch where I planted out some snowdrops. This one shows up after the snowdrops but looks a bit like them. It seems to have bulbils or seed pods in a papery case below the single flower. Most odd. The leaves do not smell of onion / alliums.
Anyone know what it is?

[Thelma Sanders]

a mutant snowdrop?

[Glutton4...]

Could they be a Leucojum?

[veggiechicken]

Could they be a Leucojum?

I wondered that too but they have small green spots on each petal - can't see them on Jeanie's flowers

[Jeanied]

No the flowers are all white - dead odd the way the flower pops out of the top.

[Jeanied]

Just counted the petals - three outer ones and three inner ones, six yellow stamens.

Right - I think they are very under-developed Allium Neapolitanum - but I always thought allium foliage smelled onion-y!

[Two_Sheds]

I've been seeing them all over the place, I'd love to know what they are.

I don't think they're Allium Neapolitanum because each single flower is on its own stalk. AN has multiple flowers on one stalk, I think (I'm happy to be wrong)

[Jeanied]

Well, I emailed the photos to the RHS and they came back to me with an answer!

The bulb is Allium paradoxum, a species of wild garlic. It is native to the Caucasus and western Asia but is frequently naturalized in Britain, where it sometimes becomes a weed.

It is interesting in that it spreads not only by seeds, which are said to be dispersed by ants, but also by the small greenish bulbils produced among the flowers.

[Nicos]

That didn't take long did it?

I'll be looking out for those- no smell of onion/garlic at all? Gosh.

[Florence Fennel]

Curiosity satisfied. What a relief. Thanks Jeanie!

[Jeanied]

Now the question is, do I really want it growing in my front garden?