Changes

''Liliaceae''.

Persia. This plant appears in the bazar in Teheren as a vegetable underthe name of wolag. It also grows in the Alps. The whole of the youngplant is considered a delicacy and is used as an addition to rice in apilau.

Europe and the Orient. This is a hardy perennial, remarkable for thesize of the bulbs. The leaves and stems somewhat resemble those of theleek. The peasants in certain parts of Southern Europe eat it raw andthis is its only known use.

Siberia. Called on the upper Yenisei mischei-tschesnok, mouse garlic,and from early times collected and salted for winter use.

Cultivated everywhere. The Askolonion krommoon of Theophrastus andthe Cepa ascolonia of Pliny, are supposed to be our shallot but thisidentity can scarcely be claimed as assured. It is not established thatthe shallot occurs in a wild state, and De Candolle is inclined to believeit is a form of A. cepa, the onion. It is mentioned and figured in nearlyall the early botanies, and many repeat the statement of Pliny that itcame from Ascalon, a town in Syria, whence the name. Michaud, in hisHistory of the Crusades, says that our gardens owe to the holy warsshallots, which take their name from Ascalon. Amatus Lusitanus, 1554,gives Spanish, Italian, French and German names, which go to show itsearly culture in these countries. In England, shallots are said to havebeen cultivated in 1633, but McIntosh says they were introduced in1548; they do not seem to have been known to Gerarde in 1597. In1633, Worlidge says "eschalots art now from France become an Englishcondiment." Shallots are enumerated for American gardens in 1806.Vilmorin mentions one variety with seven sub-varieties.

The bulbs are compound, separating into what are called cloves, likethose of garlic, and are of milder flavor than other cultivated alliums.They are used in cookery as a seasoner in stews and soups, as also in araw state; the cloves, cut into small sections, form an ingredient inFrench salads and are also sprinkled over steaks and chops. Theymake an excellent pickle. In China, the shallot is grown but is notvalued as highly as is A. uliginosum.

North America. There is some hesitation in referring the tree onion of thegarden to this wild onion. Loudon refers to it as "the tree, or bulbbearing,onion, syn. Egyptian onion, A. cepa, var. viviparium; the stemproduces bulbs instead of flowers and when these bulbs are plantedthey produce underground onions of considerable size and, beingmuch stronger flavored than those of any other variety, they go fartherin cookery." Booth says, "the bulb-bearing tree onion was introducedinto England from Canada in 1820 and is considered to be avivaparous variety of the common onion, which it resembles inappearance. It differs in its flower-stems being surmounted by a clusterof small green bulbs instead of bearing flowers and seed." It is apeculiarity of A. canadense that it often bears a head of bulbs in theplace of flowers; its flavor is very strong; it is found throughout northernUnited States and Canada. Mueller says its top bulbs are much soughtfor pickles of superior flavor. Brown says its roots are eaten by someIndians. In 1674, when Marquette and his party journeyed from GreenBay to the present site of Chicago, these onions formed almost the entiresource of food. The lumbermen of Maine often used the plant in theirbroths for flavoring. On the East Branch of the Penobscot, these onionsoccur in abundance and are bulb-producing on their stalks. They growin the clefts of ledges and even with the scant soil attain a foot in height.In the lack of definite information, it may be allowable to suggest thatthe tree onion may be a hybrid variety from this wild species, orpossibly the wild species improved by cultivation. The name, Egyptianonion, is against this surmise, while, on the other hand, its apparentorigination in Canada is in its favor, as is also the appearance of thegrowing plants.

Persia and Beluchistan. The onion has been known and cultivated asan article of food from the earliest period of history. Its native country isunknown. At the present time it is no longer found growing wild, but allauthors ascribe to it an eastern origin. Perhaps it is indigenous fromPalestine to India, whence it has extended to China, Cochin China,Japan, Europe, North and South Africa and America. It is mentioned inthe Bible as one of the things for which the Israelites longed in thewilderness and complained about to Moses. Herodotus says, in his timethere was an inscription on the Great Pyramid stating the sumexpended for onions, radishes and garlic, which had been consumed bythe laborers during the progress of its erection, as 1600 talents. Avariety was cultivated, so excellent that it received worship as a divinity,to the great amusement of the Romans, if Juvenal is to be trusted.Onions were prohibited to the Egyptian priests, who abstained frommost kinds of pulse, but they were not excluded from the altars of thegods. Wilkinson says paintings frequently show a priest holding themin his hand, or covering an altar with a bundle of their leaves and roots.They were introduced at private as well as public festivals and broughtto table. The onions of Egypt were mild and of an excellent flavor andwere eaten raw as well as cooked by persons of all classes.

Hippocrates says that onions were commonly eaten 430 B. C.Theophrastus, 322 B. C., names a number of varieties, the Sardian,Cnidian, Samothracian and Setanison, all named from the places wheregrown. Dioscorides, 60 A. D., speaks of the onion as long or round,yellow or white. Columella, 42 A. D., speaks of the Marsicam, which thecountry people call unionem, and this word seems to be the origin ofour word, onion, the French ognon. Pliny, 79 A. D., devotesconsiderable space to cepa, and says the round onion is the best, andthat red onions are more highly flavored than the white. Palladius, 210A. D., gives minute directions for culture. Apicius, 230 A. D., gives anumber of recipes for the use of the onion in cookery but its uses bythis epicurean writer are rather as a seasoner than as an edible. In thethirteenth century, Albertus Magnus describes the onion but does notinclude it in his list of garden plants where he speaks of the leek andgarlic, by which we would infer, what indeed seems to have been thecase with the ancients, that it was in less esteem than these, now minor,vegetables. In the sixteenth century, Amatus Lusitanus says the onionis one of the commonest of vegetables and occurs in red and whitevarieties, and of various qualities, some sweet, others strong, and yetothers intermediate in savor. In 1570, Matthiolus refers to varieties aslarge and small, long, round and flat, red, bluish, green and white.Laurembergius, 1632, says onions differ in form, some being round,others, oblong; in color, some white, others dark red; in size, somelarge, others small; in their origin, as German, Danish, Spanish. He saysthe Roman colonies during the time of Agrippa grew in the gardens ofthe monasteries a Russian sort which attained sometimes the weight ofeight pounds. He calls the Spanish onion oblong, white and large,excelling all other sorts in sweetness and size and says it is grown inlarge abundance in Holland. At Rome, the sort which brings the highestprice in the markets is the Caieta; at Amsterdam, the St. Omer.

There is a tradition in the East, as Glasspoole writes, that when Satanstepped out of the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, onions sprangup from the spot where he placed his right foot and garlic from thatwhere his left foot touched.

Targioni-Tozzetti thinks the onion will probably prove identical with A.fistulosum Linn., a species having a rather extended range in themountains of South Russia and whose southwestern limits are as yetunascertained.

The onion has been an inmate of British gardens, says McIntosh, aslong as they deserve the appellation. Chaucer," about 1340, mentionsthem: "Wel loved he garleek, onyons and ek leekes."

Humboldt says that the primitive Americans were acquainted with theonion and that it was called in Mexican xonacatl. Cortez, in speaking ofthe edibles which they found on the march to Tenochtitlan, cites onions,leeks and garlic. De Candollel does not think that these names apply tothe species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in the seventeenth century,had seen the onion only in Jamaica in gardens. The word xonacati isnot in Hernandez, and Acosta says expressly that the onions andgarlics of Peru came originally from Europe. It is probable that onionswere among the garden herbs sown by Columbus at Isabela Island in1494, although they are not specifically mentioned. Peter Martyrspeaks of "onyons" in Mexico and this must refer to a period before1526, the year of his death, seven years after the discovery of Mexico. Itis possible that onions, first introduced by the Spaniards to the WestIndies, had already found admittance to Mexico, a rapidity ofadaptation scarcely impossible to that civilized Aztec race, yetapparently improbable at first thought.

Onions are mentioned by Wm. Wood, 1629-33, as cultivated inMassachusetts; in 1648, they were cultivated in Virginia; and weregrown at Mobile, Ala., in 1775. In 1779, onions were among the Indiancrops destroyed by Gen. Sullivan near Geneva, N. Y. In 1806, McMahonmentions six varieties in his list of American esculents. In 1828, thepotato onion, A. cepa, var. aggregatum G. Don, is mentioned byThorburn as a "vegetable of late introduction into our country." Burrdescribes fourteen varieties.

Vilmorin describes sixty varieties, and there are a number of varietiesgrown in France which are not noted by him. In form, these may bedescribed as flat, flattened, disc-form, spherical, spherical-flattened,pear-shaped, long. This last form seems to attain an exaggerated lengthin Japan, where they often equal a foot in length. In 1886, Kizo Tamari,a Japanese commissioner to this country, says, "Our onions do nothave large, globular bulbs. They are grown just like celery and havelong, white, slender stalks." In addition to the forms mentioned above,are the top onion and the potato onion. The onion is described in manycolors, such as white, dull white, silvery white, pearly white, yellowishgreen,coppery-yellow, salmon-yellow, greenish-yellow, bright yellow,pale salmon, salmon-pink, coppery-pink, chamois, red, bright red,blood-red, dark red, purplish.

But few of our modem forms are noticed in the early botanies. Thefollowing synonymy includes all that are noted, but in establishing it, itmust be noted that many of the figures upon which it is founded arequite distinct:

I.Bulb flat at bottom, tapering towards stem.Cepa. Fuchsius, 430. 1542.Cepa rotunda. Bodaeus, 787. 1644.Caepe sive Cepa rubra el alba. Bauhin, J. 2: 549. 1651.Geant de Rocca. Vilm. 387. 1883.Mammoth Pompeii. American Seedsmen.Golden Queen. American Seedsmen.Paris Silverskin. American Seedsmen.Silver White Etna. American Seedsmen.

The difference at first sight between the crude figure of Fuchsius andthe modern varieties is great, but ordinary experience indicates that thechanges are no greater than can be observed under selection.

II.Bulb round at bottom, tapering towards stem.Zwiblen. Roeszl. 121. 1550.Cepa. Trag. 737. 1552.Caepa. Cam. Epit. 324. 1586.Blanc hatif de Valence. Vilm. 378. 1883.Neapolitan Marzajola. American Seedsmen.Round White Silverskin. American Seedsmen.White Portugal. American Seedsmen.

III.Bulb roundish, flattened above and below.Cepa. Matth. 276, 1558; Pin. 215. 1561.Caepa capitata. Matth. 388. 1570.Cepe. Lob. Obs. 73. 1576; Icon. 1:150. 1591.Cepa rubra. Ger. 134. 1597.Cepa rotunda. Dod. 687. i6i6.Rouge gros-plat d'ltalie. Vilm. 387. 1883.Bermuda. American Seedsmen.Large Flat Madeira. American Seedsmen.Wethersfield Large Red. American Seedsmen.

IV.Bulb rounded below, flattened above.Cepa. Pictorius 82. 1581.Philadelphia Yellow Dutch, or Strasburg. American Seedsmen.

V.Bulb spherical, or nearly so.Cepa. Trag. 737. 1552. Lauremb. 26. 1632,Cepe. Lob. Obs. 73. 1576; Icon. 1;150. 1591.Cepe alba. Ger. 134. 1597.Caepa capitata. Matth. 419. 1598.Juane de Danvers. Vilm. 380. 1883.Danvers. American Seedsmen.

VIBulb concave on the bottom.Cepa rotunda. Bodaeus 786. 1644.Extra Early Red. American Seedsmen.

VII.Bulb oblong.Caepa. Cam. Epit. 324. 1586.Cepae Hispanica oblonga. Lob. Icon. 1:150. 1591.Cepa oblonga. Dod. 687. 1616; Bodaeus 787. 1644.Piriform. Vilm. 388. 1883.

VIII.The top onion.In 1587, Dalechamp records with great surprise an onion plant whichbore small bulbs in the place of seed.

Western New York to Wisconsin and southward. This and A.canadense formed almost the entire source of food for Marquette andhis party on their journey from Green Bay to the present site of Chicagoin the fall of 1674.

CIBOUL. TWO-BLADED ONION. WELSHONION.

Siberia, introduced into England in 1629. The Welsh onion acquired itsname from the German walsch (foreign). It never forms a bulb like thecommon onion but has long, tapering roots and strong fibers. It isgrown for its leaves which are used in salads. McIntosh says it has asmall, flat, brownish-green bulb which ripens early and keeps well andis useful for pickling. It is very hardy and, as Targioni-Tozzetti thinks,is probably the parent species of the onion. It is mentioned byMcMahon in 1806 as one of the American garden esculents; byRandolph in Virginia before 1818; and was cataloged for sale byThorburn in 1828, as at the present time.

Europe and the Orient. According to Heldreich, it yields roots which areedible.

Siberia. From early times the plant has been cultivated on the Tobol asa substitute for garlic.

Europe. The young leaves are used in Sweden to flavor stews andsoups or fried with other herbs and are sometimes so employed inBritain but are inferior to those of the cultivated garlic.

Found growing wild in Algiers but the Bon Jardinier says it is a nativeof Switzerland. It has been cultivated from the earliest times. Thisvegetable was the prason of the ancient Greeks, the porrum of theRomans, who distinguished two kinds, the capitatum, or leek, and thesectile, or chives, although Columella, Pliny, and Palladius, indicatethese as forms of the same plant brought about through difference ofculture, the chive-like form being produced by thick planting. InEurope, the leek was generally known throughout the Middle Ages, andin the earlier botanies some of the figures of the leek represent the twokinds of planting alluded to by the Roman writers. In England, 1726,Townsend says that "leeks are mightily used in the kitchen for brothsand sauces." The Israelites complained to Moses of the deprivation fromthe leeks of Egypt during their wanderings in the wilderness. Plinystates, that in his time the best leeks were brought from Egypt, andnames Aricia in Italy as celebrated for them. Leeks were brought intogreat notice by the fondness for them of the Emperor Nero who used toeat them for several days in every month to clear his voice, whichpractice led the people to nickname him Porrophagus. The date of itsintroduction into England is given as 1562, but it certainly wascultivated there earlier, for it has been considered from time immemorialas the badge of Welshmen, who won a victory in the sixth century overthe Saxons which they attributed to the leeks they wore by the order ofSt. David to distinguish them in the battle. It is referred to by Tusserand Gerarde as if in common use in their day.

The leek may vary considerably by culture and often attain a large size;one with the blanched portion a foot long and nine inches incircumference and the leaf fifteen inches in breadth and three feet inlength has been recorded. Vilmorin described eight varieties in 1883but some of these are scarcely distinct. In 1806, McMahon named threevarieties among American garden esculents. Leeks are mentioned byRomans as growing at Mobile, Ala., in 1775 and as cultivated by theChoctaw Indians. The reference to leeks by Cortez is noticed under A.cepa, the onion. The lower, or blanched, portion is the part generallyeaten, and this is used in soups or boiled and served as asparagus.Buist names six varieties. The blanched stems are much used in Frenchcookery.

Mediterranean countries. According to Heldreich, this plant yieldsedible roots.

 Europe, Siberia and the Orient. The bulbs are eaten by the hill people ofIndia and the leaves are dried and preserved as a condiment.

Europe. This plant, well known to the ancients, appears to be native tothe plains of western Tartary and at a very early period was transportedthence over the whole of Asia (excepting Japan), north Africa andEurope. It is believed to be the skorodon hemeron of Dioscorides andthe allium of Pliny. It was ranked by the Egyptians among gods intaking an oath, according to Pliny. The want of garlics was lamented toMoses by the Israelites in the wilderness. Homer makes garlic a part ofthe entertainment which Nestor served to his guest, Machaon. TheRomans are said to have disliked it on account of the strong scent butfed it to their laborers to strengthen them and to their soldiers to excitecourage. It was in use in England prior to 1548 and both Turner andTusser notice it. Garlic is said to have been introduced in China 140-86B. C. and to be found noticed in various Chinese treatises of thefifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Loureirofound it under cultivation in Cochin China.

The first mention of garlic in America is by Peter Martyr, who states thatCortez fed on it in Mexico. In Peru, Acosta says "the Indians esteemgarlike above all the roots of Europe." It was cultivated by the ChoctawIndians in gardens before 1775 and is mentioned among gardenesculents by American writers on gardening in 1806 and since. Theplant has the well-known alliaceous odor which is strongly penetrating,especially at midday. It is not as much used by northern people as bythose of the south of Europe. In many parts of Europe, the peasantryeat their brown bread with slices of garlic which imparts a flavoragreeable to them. In seed catalogs, the sets are listed while seed israrely offered. There are two varieties, the common and the pink.

North temperate zone. This perennial plant seems to be grown in butfew American gardens, although McMahon, 1806, included it in his listof American esculents. Chive plants are included at present among thesupplies offered in our best seed catalogs. In European gardens, theyare cultivated for the leaves which are used in salads, soups and forflavoring. Chives are much used in Scotch families and are considerednext to indispensable in omelettes and hence are much more used onthe Continent of Europe, particularly in Catholic countries. In England,chives were described by Gerarde as "a pleasant Sawce and good Potherb;"by Worlidge in 1683; the chive was among seedsmen's suppliesin 1726; and it is recorded as formerly in great request but now of littleregard, by Bryant in 1783.

The only indication of variety is found in Noisette, who enumerates thecivette, the cive d'Angleterre and the cive de Portugal but says theseare the same, only modified by soil. The plant is an humble one and ispropagated by the bulbs; for, although it produces flowers, these areinvariably sterile according to Vilmorin.

ROCAMBOLE. SAND LEEK. SPANISHGARLIC.

Europe, Caucasus region and Syria. This species grows wild in theGrecian Islands and probably elsewhere in the Mediterranean regions.Loudon says it is a native of Denmark, formerly cultivated in Englandfor the same purposes as garlic but now comparatively neglected. It isnot of ancient culture as it cannot be recognized in the plants of theancient Greek and Roman authors and finds no mention of gardencultivation by the early botanists. It is the Scorodoprasum of Clusius,1601, and the Allii genus, ophioscorodon dictum quibusdam, of J.Bauhin, 1651, but there is no indication of culture in either case. Ray,1688, does not refer to its cultivation in England. In 1726, however,Townsend says it is "mightly in request;" in 1783, Bryant classes it withedibles. In France it was grown by Quintyne, 1690. It is mentioned byGerarde as a cultivated plant in 1596. Its bulbs are smaller than thoseof garlic, milder in taste and are produced at the points of the stem aswell as at its base. Rocambole is mentioned among American gardenesculents by McMahon, 1806, by Gardiner and Hepburn, 1818, and byBridgeman, 1832.

Europe and Siberia. From early times this species has been eaten bythe people about Lake Baikal.

BEAR'S GARLIC. BUCKRAMS. GIPSY ONION.HOG'S GARLIC. RAMSONS.

Europe and northern Asia. Gerarde, 1597, says the leaves were eaten inHolland. They were also valued formerly as a pot-herb in England,though very strong. The bulbs were also used boiled and in salads. InKamchatka this plant is much prized. The Russians as well as thenatives gather it for winter food.

Europe and now naturalized in northern America near the coast. InEngland, the leaves are used as are those of garlic.