The bulbils are clones, just like cloves but smaller. I’ve read you can grow from them, but for most varieties you have to let it go for 2 years to get a head. For genetic diversity you need sexual reproduction and true seed. Many types of garlic are incapable of producing seed, like all softnecks. Even many hardneck varieties will produce mostly or entirely bulbils rather than seed, and even on the ones that will make seed you apparently need to manually take the bulbils off with tweezers to get the plant to put resources into the seeds. Here is a quote from an article on garlic seed:
As a bolting garlic plant matures, the scape emerges and first coils and then uncoils as its umbel develops. Garlic umbels have both bulbils for asexual reproduction and flowers for sexual reproduction. Bulbils look like tiny garlic bulbs or cloves. Bulbils and flowers compete for the plant’s resources. With certain exceptions, if the plant is left on its own the bulbils win and the flowers wither and die before they can produce seed. The bulbils must be removed from the umbel in order to tilt the balance toward seed production. Removing the bulbils allows the flowers to develop, achieve anthesis, and produce seed. Interestingly, in subsequent generations of seed-produced plants the bulbils are often far fewer and may not require removal for successful seed production.
If you are interested in ANY aspect of garlic, I highly recommend The Complete Book of Garlic, by Ted Jordan Meredith. It is expensive from Amazon, but my local library system had it.
