It was almost 40 years ago on one of my many memorable trips to Inis Meáin, the middle island of the Aran Islands that I first came upon them. Growing haphazardly all over the island, on the sandy sides of the small boreens, their long, sleek, slightly coiled, bright green stems are crowned with a large, purple clustered head, on the verge of exploding.

I have come to know this beguiling and enigmatic member of the onion family as ‘Babington’s Leek’ deriving from its botanical classification Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii.

All those years ago, I picked up a stray bulbous head that had broken off and brought it home. I scattered its little bulbils in different spots in the garden and now each year I am regaled with a fascinating show of these self-propagating sentinel onion domes.

Charles Cardale Babington (1808-1895) was one of the foremost botanists of his day; a contemporary of Charles Darwin, he was one of a group of 19th century polymaths who undertook the seminal scientific identification, categorisation and labelling of plants, animals, insects, fish and all living matter.

In September 1835, not long after publishing his first major botanical study of the flora around Bath, he came to Ireland where he visited the yet unmapped territory of Connemara and stayed in Roundstone.

In his memoirs Babington wrote of how impressed he was on meeting the young 21-year-old William McCalla, the son of a retired Scottish soldier who was the innkeeper in Roundstone. Unlike his father who was, by all accounts, his own best customer in the inn, young William proved to be something of a prodigy.

He was largely self-taught and had – through his observations of local flora and seaweeds – become a collector for James MacKay, curator of the Botanic Gardens attached to Trinity College in Dublin.

William McCalla accompanied Babington on his foray in Connemara, and with his in-depth knowledge of the local flora, it is most likely that it was he who pointed out the unusually tall, bulbous allium growing in and around Roundstone, one of its few native locations.

Aran islanders called the leek oinniún fidín.

Babington noted its presence and came across the same variation in Cornwall, and in his 1843 Manual of British Botany, he categorised the allium as a new variant, Allium halleri. Halleri was already in use and Babington’s friend, William Borer, renamed the unusual plant Allium babingtonii in honour of Babington’s distinguished botanical career.

While Babington gives full credit to McCalla in his 1843 publication, there is a little part of me that wonders if it might have been named ‘McCalla’s Leek’.

Nathaniel Colgan writing in 1893 tells us that the Aran islanders called the leek oinniún fidín and at that time it was grown in small quantities in garden plots and used as a cure for worms in animals. He could find no record of it being used for any culinary purposes.

Some marvellous recent work by Aedín Ní Thiarnaigh in The Wildflowers of Inis Meáin, records the local name as gairleog fhiáin ‘wild garlic’ and mentions that it is the bane of many island farmers, given that cows love the taste of it, resulting in a strong garlic flavour in the summer milk.

On my visits to Inis Meáin, my students and I have been treated to hearty bowls of flavoursome soup made with the gairleog by Vilma in Tig Congaile.

The wider genus Ampleloprasum,literally meaning ‘vine’ and ‘leek’, is found all over the Mediterranean, while the Babington variant is generally restricted to the coastal areas of the Aran Islands, Connemara and some parts of Wexford.

They are also found in Cornwall, the Scilly Isles and they grow in Northern Spain and Portugal, with recent genetic investigations suggesting a possible origin on the North African coastline between Algeria and Tunisia.

How, when and why these mesmerising wild onions have made their way to Ireland enters my head every time I see them.

I have a secret theory that aligns them with the late Bronze Age stone forts, such as Dun Aonghasa on the Aran Islands. This stone fort, like a number of others dotted along the coastline from Spain to Cornwall, is distinguished by a characteristic encirclement of upright stones, known as chevaux de frise.

This whimsical association is nothing but pure conjecture but a satisfying one, brought on by the wonder of the bulbous heads of the enduring leek.

Shane Lehane is a folklorist and works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. He is contactable on slehane@ucc.ie.