Allium thunbergiiG.Don

Chinese chives

WFO wfo-0000757571 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Allium thunbergii, photographed by harum.koh
fig. a harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2019-11-10 / obs. 56025337
Allium thunbergii, photographed by Yoshimasa Uchiyama
fig. b Yoshimasa Uchiyama, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103651107
Allium thunbergii, photographed by harum.koh
fig. c harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 56025333

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 10 botanical countries

Regions where Allium thunbergii is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastInner MongoliaJapanManchuriaTaiwan KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Allium thunbergii, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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.

Also published as 19 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.

  • Allium arenarium Thunb.
  • Allium bakeri var. morrisonense (Hayata) Tang S.Liu & S.S.Ying
  • Allium bakeri var. morrisonense (Hayata) T.S.Liu & S.S.Ying
  • Allium cyaneum f. stenodon (Nakai & Kitag.) Kitag.
  • Allium cyaneum var. deltoides S.O.Yu, S.Lee & W.Lee
  • Allium cyaneum var. stenodon (Nakai & Kitag.) Kitag.
  • Allium japonicum Steud.
  • Allium morrisonense Hayata
  • Allium nerinifolium Baker
  • Allium odorum Thunb.
  • Allium plurifoliatum var. stenodon (Nakai & Kitag.) J.M.Xu
  • Allium pseudocyaneum Grüning
  • Allium sacculiferum var. glaucum P.P.Gritz.
  • Allium sacculiferum var. robustum P.P.Gritz.
  • Allium senescens Thunb.
  • Allium stenodon Nakai & Kitag.
  • Allium thunbergii var. teretifistulosum H.J.Choi & B.U.Oh
  • Allium triquetrum Lour.
  • Allium yamarakkyo Honda

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol ALOD2. public domain. 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.