SWISS FLOWERS. 117 



97. Allium.— Garlic. 



(PLATE XLVIIL) 



There is no need to give a distinguishing mark for this 

 family, for the smell of onion at once stamps it. But, as the 

 flowers of many of the species are exceedingly pretty, and 

 as the smell is generally stronger in some other part of the 

 plant than in them, they will be often gathered eagerly by 

 those to whom they are not known. The general character 

 of the family is — plants with flowers in terminal umbels or 

 heads, sometimes of quite a globular shape, with two, or 

 more, scaly bracts or sheaths at the base. Sometimes little 

 bulbs are mixed with the flowers. The corolla has six seg- 

 ments, distinct from the base. In some of the species 

 three alternate stamens are broader and divided into three 

 at the top, the middle point bearing the anther. The root 

 is a bulb. They are subdivided according to the equal or 

 unequal stamens, the roundness or flatness of the leaves, and 

 the absence or presence of little bulbs in the flower-head. 



A. ursinum (Fig. 97) is about a foot high, with an umbel, 

 two inches or more across, of beautiful snowy-white flowers, 

 and with rather a pleasant smell, far difi*erent from that of 

 the other parts of the plant when rubbed or bruised. The 



