The yellow ones actually look more like yellow potato onions rather than yellow shallots. I've seen one sold as the other and v.v. They are so closely related that it is often hard to distinguish between the two until they are grown side by side.

The white one looks like an ordinary bulbing onion which has gone to seed. Definitely does not look like any shallot that I've ever known. That bulb is not a "multiplier" but a regular bulb which forms first to supply reserve energy to the flower.

Shallots and potato onions will rest during the winter and then divide in the spring. Onions will also rest but then send up a flower stalk shortly after the bulb is formed.

Martin

Thanks for your response, Martin. You may be perfectly correct re the white bulb being an onion rather than a shallot. Regretably, I do some things which are not recorded in the garden log, and in this case I may have moved some Japanese spring onions, which seemed stalled in their development, in Nov. to the area next to the shallots. And then forgot all about them. Would a scallion mature into something like this bulbing onion?
Thanks for the help with this. John

John, I've never seen a white shallot. They show color as soon as they begin development. Not certain how big the Japanese spring onion can get but if you had them in your garden, that would explain your white one. Also, most shallots do not make flower stalks but simply divide. There are hybrid shallots which form flowers but they also are not white.

Martin

Martin