[Image description: a perfectly round peeled bulb of garlic on a cutting board, with unpeeled normal cloves behind it.]

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    141
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 months ago

    That’s not done yet. Garlic looks like this when it hasn’t ‘split’ into the clove parts yet. This will be bland and only have a mild flavor.

    • Pheral@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      This is amazing info to me. I’ve been growing garlic at a hobby level for ages and never knew how the bulbs develop. Thank you for sending me down a garlic education rabbit hole!

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        67
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        So you’ve got two modes of reproduction with Allium. Allium like this typically follows a biennial habit, so this years garlic will split into cloves around the fall, in preparation for sending up a flowering stalk next spring/ summer. The cloves are vegetative propagules; just another way to get more garlic other than seeds. Hence you can just plant a clove and get a garlic next year, or, you can plant seed and also get garlic.

        Now for your actually question, I believe the segmentation is probably exogenous, technically yes, however, I am by no means an expert in Allium morphology (although I have done graduate coarse work in plant morph, and worked in a plant morph lab), so don’t quote me. However, it wouldn’t appear like you are describing. Think of the ring at the base of a clove of garlic as a bunch of ‘stems’. The branching would originate there.