ANALOGIES AND AFFINITIES. 53 



But, notwithstanding tlie high anthorities who have 

 promulgated them, the several proposed alliaceous genera 

 will apparently fail of obtaining a final general approval 

 with botanists. They are to-day farther than ever from 

 finding acceptance. The very comprehensive Allium of 

 Halier, of Linnneus and of Bentham is, for now twenty 

 years past, I believe everywhere received ; this notwith- 

 standing that no one has very openly expressed an opinion 

 as to why, or upon what principles, such great diversities 

 of vegetative and floral character may be admitted within a 



genus. 



Without any doubt, that which, in the minds of so many 

 botanists from Haller's time to the present, has overborne all 

 orgaiiographic discrepancies, and has constrained them to 

 retain one polymorphous genus Allium, instead of making 

 three, or five, or twenty genera, has been nothing else but 

 that peculiar sensible property which pervades the whole 

 series of species. Yet, I say, such a proposition as that 

 odors and flavors should sometimes be allowed to outweigh 

 morphological considerations, has never been contended 

 for ; and the traditions of phytography are all against the 

 idea. 



Something over forty years ago Kunth, in the face of those 

 axioms and traditions, but without apology for his action, 

 picked out from the genus Allium as then received, some- 

 thing like a dozen species, all of which were unlike the rest 

 in being wholly scentless, and made of them a new genus, 

 NoUwscordum. In some of the species he found the segments 

 of the perianth more coherent, in others the number of ovules 

 greater than in any species of true Allium. But these morpho- 

 logical differences amount to almost nothing. The genus rests 

 really upon that one negative characteristic, the total absence 

 of the odor and savor of onions. And this formal admission 

 of the peculiar odor into the generic character oi Allium, has 

 ^een at once approved by most botanists, is become the 

 effectual defense of Nolhoscordnm, and has led to the 

 establishment of at least one other scentless genus, the type 



