because daffodils are sometimes sold in bunches before the flowers open. Garlic chives and daffodils have flat leaves and the chive buds do have a similar shape to those of daffodils. I can also understand how someone new to a culture would guess that these narcissus were just a different variety of chives because there's a learning curve on many vegetables and fruits. Western broccoli heads bear little resemblance to most Asian broccoli relatives, for example. Also, the bulbs do look like an onion variety.

As I noted above though, if one is looking at a produce counter where varieties are different from those in one's homeland they could be mistaken for garlic chives.

For example, broccoli is dramatically different.

Western broccoli:


One of the Asian broccoli types (Gai lan) :

It may be a bit of a reach, but I suppose it's a possibility that can't be considered a zero risk that someone exploring novel cooking ideas might mistake yet-opened blossoms for something they aren't.

Reminder to self: Plant more daffodils

In fact, the squirrels tend to stay away from the beds where they are planted!

On my list for next fall is to buy more daffodils. I have lots and lots of paper whites that all came from one bunch that was growing on the farm when we bought it in 1978, but I only have a few daffodils. The paperwhites bloom earlier - they are already finished for this year - so if I interplant daffodils, I will have winter blooms for a few months.

That will take the place of the pansies I love since the deer consider pansies delicious.

I have a lot of paper white narcissus. A few years ago when my garden got out of control, I hired a man to pull weeds - I had to stop him from pulling all the "wild onions" - my treasured vintage variety paper whites! They had not bloomed yet that winter and the leaves looked a lot like onion leaves.

Oh well, it was a good opportunity to divide and plant them more places.