 "Ornithogalum umbellatum" has been known and described for a long time, according to some authors, as far back as Dioscorides in the first century.In 16th-century England, William Turner (1562) mentions it.In Henry Lyte's 1586 "New Herbal" (a translation into English of Dodoens' 1554 "Cruydeboeck"), reference is made to an "Ornithogalum" as the White Field Onion.