ALLIUM. 
a sheltered place and soil light and perfectly drained. Akin to this 
is A. calyptratum from Asia Minor, while A. cilicicum and A. gom- 
phrenoeides are cousins to Schoenoprason, the latter being a rare plant 
from rock-faces of Vitylos in Laconia, only attaining 6 or 10 inches, 
with heads of large and brilliant bloom (this is A. ascalonicum of some 
authorities but not of Linnaeus). Returning to larger subjects, we 
are often offered A. karataviense, which proves a rather coarse plant 
with stolid globes of pinky white nestling amid broad glaucous foliage, 
two leaves to each bulb. Much taller is A. Rosenbachianum from 
Central Asia, which has exactly the habit of A. gigantewm, but here 
the flowers are of pale and not resplendent pinkish tone (besides, in 
A. giganteum the leaves hug the ground), And tall, rather delicate and 
graceful A. fragrans, of South-west Europe and North America, goes 
one better than éven A. neapolitanum in its avoidance of the family 
smell. For, though its flowers, carried loosely on tall-stemmed heads 
in late summer, are nothing much to look at, they have the astonishing 
charm of a really delicious scent. No wonder that its eccentricity 
has decided some authorities to regard it as a by-blow of the family, 
and to put it in a house and race apart, as Nothoscordon fragrans. 
One wishes as much could be said for pretty little A. triquetrum (May), 
which, from shady cool banks and moist places in Spain and Liguria, 
has established its claim to be an English native in Commwall. How- 
ever, A. triquetrum may plead other utilities ; for now it promises to 
develop into a popular vegetable. The plant has great attraction, 
and is always to be known by its fat, three-sided stems of some 6 
inches or so, each carrying perhaps six large pendulous flowers of a 
diaphanous white, looking like the ghost of a dead white flower 
drowned long ago in deep water. As for our common A. wrsinum, no 
one will ever say such sweet things for that; A. ursinum, though as 
charming as a Garlic can be, has a most pestilential smell, and a most 
invasive habit. Let no one admit it to the garden ; its only place is 
the wild wood, where it amuses itself by making the unwary mistake 
it for Lily of the Valley—until they have picked it. By far the most 
beautiful, however, of all the race are the three alpines, A. Ostrow- 
skyanum, A. oreophilum, and A. narcissiflorum. A. Ostrowskyanum | 
comes to us from the Alps of Turkestan, with stems that rise to a foot 
or so, hanging out large flowers of rich dark-red violet. A. oreophilum, 
with two flat narrow recurving little leaves, sends up a stem of only 
3 inches or so, with clustered domes of big purple blossoms. This 
beautiful mountain-jewel comes from the screes of alpine Caucasus 
and Daghestan at some 7800 to 9000 feet. It has been figured in the 
Gartenflora, i. 775, and yet remains persistently confused in catalogues 
