• 13 parts
  • Checked September 2026

Parts of a Garlic Clove, Bulb and Plant

A garlic bulb opened and one clove cut lengthwise, then the whole plant with its coiled scape.

Parts of a Garlic Clove, Bulb and Plant

Name Date

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
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Write the name of each numbered part.Answer key

  1. Clove
  2. Bulb wrappers (skins)
  3. Basal plate
  4. Clove skin (protective leaf)
  5. Storage leaf
  6. Sprout (sprout leaf)
  7. Leaves
  8. Neck (false stem)
  9. Scape
  10. Umbel
  11. Bulbils
  12. Bulb
  13. Roots

Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30 from plain geometry. Licence: own work.

Each numbered ring is a button. Use the arrow keys to move between them and Enter to choose. Names are read out in Study, and once a part is answered.

Next step Next: a daffodil, another plant from a bulb

All 13 parts on the diagram

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Bulb and clove 6

  1. Clove One segment of the bulb. Garlic is grown by planting single cloves, and each one can grow a new plant.
  2. Bulb wrappers (skins) The dry, papery leaf bases that wrap the whole bulb. They are what is left of the plant's leaves.
  3. Basal plate The flat, short stem at the bottom of the bulb. The cloves are attached to it, and the roots grow from under it.
  4. Clove skin (protective leaf) A tough, papery leaf that wraps each clove tightly and protects it.
  5. Storage leaf One thick, swollen leaf that makes up nearly all of the clove. It holds the food for the new plant, and it is the part that is eaten.
  6. Sprout (sprout leaf) The young shoot at the heart of the clove. When the clove sprouts, it grows up and out through the tip.

The plant 7

  1. Leaves Long, flat leaves whose lower parts make the neck. These parts wrap tightly round one another.
  2. Neck (false stem) It only looks like a stem. It is the tightly wrapped lower parts of the leaves. Growers call it the neck or the pseudostem.
  3. Scape The stiff flower stalk of hardneck garlic. It often coils before it straightens. Softneck garlic does not grow one.
  4. Umbel The head at the end of the scape. It is inside a papery cover with a long beak and holds bulbils and sometimes small flowers.
  5. Bulbils Small bodies that form in the umbel. Each is a tiny copy of the parent plant and can be planted like a clove.
  6. Bulb The underground head of garlic. It is a cluster of cloves wrapped in papery skins.
  7. Roots Thin roots grow down from the bottom of the bulb. They start at the basal plate.

How this list was compiled: Every name checked on 2026-09-30 against sources read that day; a name is kept only where two of them use it: (1) Ted Jordan Meredith, The Complete Book of Garlic (2008), read in the Internet Archive's full text, https://archive.org/details/the-complete-book-of-garlic-a-guide-for-gardeners-growers-and-serious-cooks-by-ted-jordan-meredith; (2) US Department of Agriculture, Plant Disease Reporter, vol. 46, no. 9 (September 1962, public domain), with its diagram of a garlic clove, https://archive.org/details/plantdiseaserepo0046unse; (3) University of Minnesota Extension, Growing garlic in home gardens, https://extension.umn.edu/vegetables/growing-garlic; (4) University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Bulletin 2063, Growing Garlic in Maine, https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2063e/; (5) Penn State Extension, Garlic Production, https://extension.psu.edu/garlic-production; (6) Wikipedia, Garlic and Bulb (text only). Hints and detail lines are in our own words. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-09-30 from plain geometry; nothing traced or copied. Licence: own work

How it works

The first drawing shows the parts of a garlic clove: a bulb opened so its cloves can be seen, and one clove cut lengthwise. The second is a hardneck garlic plant, with its umbel enlarged.

Read the full guide

Bulb and clove

Numbers 1 to 3 are on the opened bulb: a clove, the papery wrappers and the basal plate the cloves stand on. Numbers 4 to 6 are inside the cut clove: the thin skin, the thick storage leaf and the sprout in the middle.

The plant

Numbers 7 and 8 are the leaves and the neck they form. Numbers 9 to 11 are the scape, the umbel at its end and the bulbils inside it. Numbers 12 and 13 are the bulb and its roots.

  • A clove is mostly one leaf. The storage leaf is the thick part; the skin round it and the sprout inside it are leaves too.
  • Only hardneck garlic grows a scape. Softneck garlic, the kind sold in braids, has none.

Questions and answers

What are the parts of a garlic clove?

Three, from outside in: the clove skin, a tough papery leaf; the storage leaf, the thick part that is eaten; and the sprout at its heart. The flat base is where the clove was joined to the bulb's basal plate.

What is the sprout in the middle of a garlic clove?

It is the shoot of the next plant. When the clove starts to grow, the sprout pushes out through the tip, and the first leaves follow it.

What is the bottom of a garlic bulb called?

The basal plate. It is the plant's true stem, flattened into a disc. The cloves are attached on top of it and the roots grow from under it.

What is a garlic scape?

The stiff, round flower stalk of hardneck garlic. It coils, then straightens, and ends in an umbel that holds small bulbils.

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