Garlic
Garlic, a perennial bulbous plant related to the onion. Garlic bulbs consist of a cluster of bulblets called cloves, covered with a thin, paperlike skin. The flat stems are about two feet (60 cm) high; the flowers are white. Garlic cloves are widely used in soups and other dishes in southern Europe; in the United States they are used chiefly as seasoning. Wild garlic, a pink-flowered weed sometimes eaten by cows, gives milk a bad flavor.
Garlic grows from bulblets and is cultivated much like onions. It grows best as a winter crop in California, Texas, and Louisiana, where the soil is rich, the temperature mild, and the rainfall moderate. When the tops fall over, the bulbs are pulled, bunched, and stored in a cool, dry place.
The garlic is Allium sativum of the onion family, Alliaceae.
Garlic has pungent compound bulbs used to season foods.