Natural Repellent: Nodding Onion

Nodding Onion (Allium cernuum Roth) is perennial, onion-smelling plant. Its stem ranges10-50 cm tall, round or flattened, curved down near the top, sometimes 2 or more successively produced from a single bulb. Bulbs are 1-2 cm thick, usually in clusters, with membranous outer layers with parallel fibres. Its leavers are basal with several per bulb, plane or concave-convex in cross section, 1-6 mm broad, shorter than the flower stem, entire or small-toothed on the edges, green during flowering, persistent at maturity.

Its flowers are several in a nodding umbel, the surrounding, membranous bract soon dropped. Stalks slender, 2-3 times the flower length, in fruit becoming stouter, elongating, and bending upward. Tepals 4-6 mm long, elliptic-ovate, blunt, entire or nearly so, pink or white, withering in fruit, the  midribs not thickened. Stamens projecting, anthers oblong. Ovary crested with 6 distinct, flattened processes, the style thread-like, projecting, stigma round, entire. Its flowering time is around June-July. Its fruits are capsules, 3-lobed, with 6 crests at tip, about 4 mm long. Seeds are dull black, with honey-comb pattern. It is widely distributed in moist to dry, open sites, plains to montane zone.

Edible Uses:
Nodding onion is edible, and its bulbs were widely eaten by native peoples and European settlers, either raw, cooked or dried for winter. Being strongly flavored, it is mainly used as a flavoring. Cooking removes the strong smell and flavor, converting the sugar inulin to the more digestible fructose, and the bulbs become very sweet. The leaves are edible, raw or cooked. They have a delicious, strong-onion flavor, and are said to be very nice in salads. The flowers can be eaten raw or cooked. They have a delicious strong onion flavor, somewhat stronger than the leaves especially if the seeds are starting to set. They make a very decorative and tasty addition to the salad bowl.

Medicinal Uses:
Nodding Onion was used medicinally by the Cherokee, Isleta, Kwakiutl, Makah, and Quinault Indians. The juice of the plant was given to children for hives and croup, as well as for colds and sore throat. A poultice of chewed plant parts was applied to the chest for pleurisy pains, croup, and otherwise applied externally for infections, sores and swellings. A poultice of warm onions was applied externally to throat for sore throat as well.

Other Uses:
The juice of the plant has been used as a moth and mosquito repellent. The whole plant is said to repel insects and moles. It is definitely a mosquito repellent natural. The juice can be applied to exposed skin in order to repel mosquitos and other biting insects. It can be a good mosquito repellent for home.