Chap. 32.J VAEIETIES OF THE 0^'I0^^ 171 



ally, beginning at the lower parts, and hence it is that it is so 

 very long in blossom : the same is the case, too, with the plant 

 known as heliotropium.^ In some plants the flower is white, 

 in others yellow, and in others purple. The leaves fall first^' 

 from the upper part in wild-marjoram and elecampane, and 

 in rue^^ sometimes, when it has been injured accidentally. 

 In some plants the leaves are hollow, the onion and the seal- 

 lion,*^ more particularly. 



CHAP. 32. — VAEIETIES OF THE ONION. 



Garlic and onions'" are invoked by the Egyptians,'^ when 

 taking an oath, in the number of their deities. The Greeks 

 have many varieties'^ of the onion, the Sardian onion, the 

 Samothracian, the Alsidenian, the setanian, the schistan, and 

 the Ascalonian,'^ so called from Ascalon,'* a city of Judaea. 

 They have, all of them, a pungent smell, which'' draws tears 

 from the eyes, those of Cyprus more particularly, and those of 

 Cnidos the least of all. In all of them the body is composed 

 of a cartilage of an unctuous'® nature. The variety known as 

 the setanian is the smallest of them all, with the exception of 

 the Tusculan'" onion, but it is sweet to the taste. The schis- 

 tan'^ and the Ascalonian kinds are used for storing. The 

 schistan onion is left during the winter with the leaves on ; in 

 the spring it is stripped of them, upon which offsets make 



*s The Heliotropium Europaeum of botany. See B. xxii. c, 19, 



"*' These assertions, Fee says, are not consistent with modern experience. 



48 See c. 45 of this Book. 



*9 " Gethyum." The Allium schoenoprasiim, probably, of botany, the 

 ciboul or scallion. so The Allium cepa of Linnaeus. 



=1 The inhabitants of Pelusium, more particularly, were devoted to the 

 worship of the onion. They held it, in common with garlic, in great 

 aversion as an article of food. At Pelusium there was a temple also in 

 which the sea-squill was worshipped. 



='- With some little variation, from Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. B. vii. c. 4. 



53 Supposed to be identical with the Allium Ascalonicum of Linnasus, 

 the chaiotte. Pliny is the only writer who mentions the Alsidenian onion. 



^ To the Ascalonian onion, the scallion, or ciboul, owes its English name. 



ss Owing to the acetic acid which the bulb contains, and which acts on 

 the membranes of the eye. 



^ " Pinguitudinis." 



^■^ Fee queries whether the early white onion of Florence, the smallest 

 now known among the cultivated kinds, may not possibly be identical with 

 the setanian, or else the Tusculan, variety. 

 °2 From (Txt^w, to " divide" or " tear off." 



