436 Dr A.itchison on the [sess. liii. 



a note attached, stating that they were given to him by an 

 Afghan chief as the plant that yielded Salep. Mr Wilson 

 also sent a flowering plant to the Eoyal Gardens at Kew, 

 which aftbrded material for its description and delineation as 

 a new species by Mr Baker in the Botanical Magazine, 

 pi. 6707 ; but in Mr Baker's description there is no notice 

 taken of its being a plant said to yield a kind of Salep. 



Upon handling the living bulb of Allium Macleanii 

 (PI. YII. fig. 4) at this stage of its growth, I found, with the 

 exception of where there still remained adherent some slight 

 shreds of a cast-off membranaceous scale (fig. 4, /, /), that 

 the surface had a glistening semitransparent appearance, and 

 that the bulb felt hard, dense, and solid. On one side of 

 the external surface there is a groove more or less apparent, 

 broadest at the greatest circumference of the bulb, narrowing 

 towards the base, where it occupies about one-fifth of the 

 circumference, gradually becoming lost towards the apex, 

 by narrowing off to a short point ; dividing this groove into 

 two is a raised convexity passing from the base upwards, and 

 most marked at the centre of the bulb. This convexity may 

 be again divided by a slight groove. 



A vertical section (fig. 5) of the bulb, at tliis stage of its 

 growth, shows a uniform mass (c, c) of tissue, having a potato- 

 like consistency, in the centre of which a cavity exists {d, d), 

 and at the base and in the centre of this cavity is the grow- 

 ing axis of the scape with leaves {e, e) springing from the 

 flattened stem. On a transverse section (fig. 5) the bulb is 

 seen to consist of an external epidermal layer {H, H), con- 

 tinuous in tissue with the comparatively dense tissue (c, c) 

 and a central hollow or cavity {d, d) containing the growing- 

 axis (c, c). The markings on the external surface of the 

 bulb are not tracealjle into its interior structure, and except 

 the shreds of a single membranous scale (figs. 4, 5,/,/), no 

 signs whatsoever are to be perceived of any other tunics. 



By careful comparison of the bulljs of the following species 

 of Allium., for permission to examine which I am indebted 

 to the courtesy of Mr Thistleton-Dyer, C.M.G., the Director 

 of the Koyal Gardens, Kew, viz., of A. giganteum, Kegel; 

 A. Hti/pilatum, Eegel ; A. ^uworovn, Ilegel, and an Afghan 

 undetermined species of my own, I have l)een able to ascer- 

 tain that the characters above described in A. Macleanii 



