Allium stellatumNutt. ex Ker Gawl.

autumn onion

WFO wfo-0000757426 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. a Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-14 / obs. 158528497
Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. b Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153582353
Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. c Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153578698
Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. d Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151624902
Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. e Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 125834606
Allium stellatum, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. f Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109349273
Allium stellatum, photographed by stlmark
fig. g stlmark, CC0 1.0 / obs. 99850003
Allium stellatum, photographed by Chris Friesen
fig. h Chris Friesen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47573744

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 18 botanical countries

Regions where Allium stellatum is native: Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Manitoba, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ontario, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin ArkansasIllinoisIowaKansasKentuckyManitobaMichiganMinnesotaMissouriNebraskaNorth DakotaOklahomaOntarioSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasWisconsin
Native distribution of Allium stellatum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Arkansas ARK NORTHERN AMERICA
Illinois ILL
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Manitoba MAN
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
North Dakota NDA
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Wisconsin WIS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 431 in flower of 511 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Allium stellatum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 431 of 511 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 2 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Hexonychia stellatum (Nutt. ex Ker Gawl.) Salisb.
  • Stelmesus stellatus (Nutt. ex Ker Gawl.) Raf.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.