The allium has been associated with great good fortune and prosperity.
Though its blossoms smell quite sweet, its stems taste like onion. Like the other members of its family—onions and garlic—allium was thought to ward off the evil eye, an invisible, unknown watcher who brought harm to human beings and cattle.
In The Odyssey, the spell of the sorceress Circe—to turn Ulysses into a pig—is warded off by an allium.