indigenous of Auftria. Bulb from one to two inches in dia- 

 meter ; leaves from half to a foot long, from one to two 

 inches broad, inner one often bearing a bulb about the fize of 

 a filbert ; /cape upright, round, tapering, hollow, from one to 

 four feet high; /pat be fpYu ting into 2 — 3 fegments ; radii of 

 the umbel about two inches and a half long; corolla white, 

 fometimes with a purple and green, at others with only a green 

 tint on the outfide. Flowers 111 June and July. Cultivated in 

 our gardens from the days of Gerard. Hardy. Has little or no 

 fcent of Garlick. Eafily propagated both by feed and offsets. 



Brotero tells us that he has repeatedly removed the bulbs 

 from Lifbon to a more northern quarter of Portugal ; when 

 he never failed to find the plant, after a time, lb altered 

 by this change of climate and foil, as fcarcely to be recognized 

 for the fame fpecies ; the leaves becoming fhorter and more 

 convolute ; the item flaccid and dwarfifh ; the radii of the 

 umbel fhorter and unequal ; while the corolla loft all its purple 

 hue, and the bulb-bearing leaf difappeared entirely. This 

 with us is. feldom produced, nor have the flowers fcarcely ever 

 any mixture of purple or red. 



The original nigrum of Linn.eus, firft taken up in the 

 fecond edition of his Species Plantarum, was very diftinct 

 from magicuniy into which he afterwards negligently converted 

 it, in the thirteenth edition of the Syfiema Vegetabiliiim ; where, 

 fupprefling the note firft attached to the fpecific character of 

 nigrum* he has fuhftituted another, evidently defcriptive of 

 our prefent plant; of which, as a fpecies already inftituted by 

 himfelf, and Mill ftanding in the work he was then reviling, he 

 feems as completely to have loft fight, as of the real nigrum* 

 This, upon referring to his former works, will be found to be 

 the now narcijjiflorum (illyricum f) and fcarcely, if really, diftinft 

 from rofeum. The fpecific appellation was moft probably fug- 

 gelied by the black-purple colour its flowers affume when 

 dried, in which ftate alone Lixn.eus had probably at that 

 time feen them, fince he quotes J&uijEsehV Herbarium as his 

 authority. The blorius Kcaoenjis has the two names as be- 

 longing to diftinct fpecies ; but the references to Gerard's 

 Homer's, Garlick for the one, and to Jacquin's mullibulbo/um 

 for the other, fhew that the fame plant is the foundation of 

 both. The Moly indicum five Caucafon of feveral of the 

 older Botanifts, we take to be merely a bulbiferous variety. G, 



