Allium ursinum
species of plant, herb
Allium ursinum, known as wild garlic, ramsons, cowleekes, cows's leek, cowleek, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek, Eurasian wild garlic, onion grass, or bear's garlic, is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae. It is native to Eurasia, where it grows in moist woodland. It is a wild relative of onion and garlic, all belonging to the same genus, Allium. There are two recognized subspecies: A. ursinum subsp. ursinum and A. ursinum subsp. ucrainicum.
Etymology
The Latin specific name ursinum translates to 'bear' and refers to the supposed fondness of the brown bear for the bulbs; folk tales describe the bears consuming them after awakening from hibernation. Another theory is that the "ursinum" may refer to Ursa Major, as A. ursinum was perhaps one of the most northerly distributed Allium species known to the ancient Greeks, though this hypothesis is disputed. Common names for the plant in many languages also make reference to bears.
Cows love to eat them, hence the modern vernacular name of cows' leek.
The public source identifies “Allium ursinum” as species of plant, herb. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Allium, ursinum and species.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q130882. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Allium ursinum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.