Yep.

In the second year of onions, they will send up flower stalks for seed.

While they most likely will not grow to bulb very well, they will at least provide seed for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

These are potato onions, not regular onions. They are more like shallots and divide in the ground and are propagated vegetatively rather than from seed.

FWIW I ordered potato onions and shallots from Fedco this year (moose tubers) and they are supposed to ship along with their other bulbs and tubers in the beginning of April. I don't think they would ship them that time of year if it would result in outright failure. Shallots and potato onions are not day-length sensitive, so they should grow fine, though late.

Thanks for both replies! Yes, they are so much more like shallots. I have replanted for seed before - and they may or may not send up a flower stalk has been my experience with other sorts of multipliers. I will be happy with either seed or divisions! I grow many, many kinds of alliums each year, but have not tried planting these in spring before. Fedco is my very favorite source for seed...if they say spring is fine, than i trust it so!
Maybe i will pot some up, to get them going ahead of when the beds are ready and keep them from withering more over the next month or so until i can get them in ground.

Good growing to you :)

This post on "Potato Onions" caught my attention. I can't say that I've ever heard of a "Potato Onion". Every year I grow what we are locally call shallots. These "shallots" are (usually) white, bunching, have a small bulb the size of a finger tip, teardrop in shape, flower in late spring, go dormant and are dug in May/June, are broken apart and replanted in August/September. Bulb clusters are about 10 to 12 in number. They don't look like what are sold in the market as "shallots"; nor do they look like what are sold in markets as green onions or bunching onions. But, I've always wondered if "shallots" is the proper categorization.

So this post caused me to do a bit of research. I found the following reference which seems to break out Allium Cepa L into Onion, Onion [bundhing], Potato Onion, and Shallot. So Potato Onion technically looks to describe a group of onions. Corect/not correct? Also, into which group do my above onions belong? My guess would have been the bunching onion group, but now I'm not 100% sure. It would have been nice to have found cultivar references with pictues within each of these groupings.

Here is a link that might be useful: Perdue Horticulture - Allium Cepa L.

Hi! The people around here often call bunching onions "shallots", but were called "scallions" where i used to live. Our Multiplying/Potato Onions are similar to shallots - of which i also grow a few kinds. BUT, they vary in size - some are bigger and some smaller like pearl onions - but definitely bulbing, rather than finger-shaped. Shallot and Scallion are names often confused by people i know. Some of my multipliers get to be handball-sized, with 3-12 separate onion bulbs, while many more are smaller or even tiny. Love them! The shallots i grow do not multiply the same way, but are segmented int two or 2 sections.
ALL Alliums are wonderful, IMO! I never want to be without Potato Onions!

Found my onion (see below). So getting the thread back on track - where do "Potato Onions" fall?

Here is a link that might be useful: Allium fistulosum

i have been told that when we plant our Potato or Multiplying Onions that small ones make larger bulbs and larger ones produce many small ones! I have not kept track to know this...even after planting them for 9 years!
Glad