species of plant From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Onions are plants in the genus, Allium. They are eaten as vegetables. Most species of onions have bulbs that people can eat. They have a strong flavour and a very distinctive smell.
Onion | |
---|---|
Onions | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | |
Division: | |
Class: | |
Order: | |
Family: | |
Genus: | |
Species: | A. cepa |
Binomial name | |
Allium cepa | |
Onions have been grown for a long time. They were probably first grown in Ancient Egypt, together with leek and garlic, but maybe earlier. Now, most of the world's cultures eat onions.
Farmers and gardeners can grow onions from seeds or from bulbs. If they plant seeds, they must later pull out most of the young plants so the rest can grow better. This is called 'thinning'. A different way to plant onions is to plant young bulbs. This is faster, but the onions that grow this way are weaker than the onions that started as seeds.
Onions can be eaten in different ways:
When cutting an onion, the cells of the onion start to open. Then, some chemicals react. When one chemical floats through the air and reaches your eyes, they sting. There are ways to keep the chemical away. You can:
The ability of plants to deter or limit being eaten is called defence against herbivory.
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.