ANALOGIES AND AITINITIES. 55 



of the herbage as much as anything prevents their excliision 

 f lom Allium; for the characteristics of subterranean organs are 

 of high significance in the classification of liliaceous plants. It 

 is running counter to established principles to admit conn- 

 tearing and truly bulbous species into the same genus. 



- T T . t /• 7 • _ __ ,1 J.1, „ f ., 1. 



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H 



a much closer analogy than that of their subterranean organs ; 

 one well deserving notice under this heading. It is that of a 

 remarkable close likeness in both the inflorescence and the 

 structure of tlje individual flower. Both plants are of about 

 one size. The umbels are of about the same number of 

 pedicels. The size of the periantli, the form and the expansion 

 of the segments are the same in both ; and even the stamens, 

 with their broadly subulate filaments a little coherent below, 

 are almost exactly alike in the two species of these very dis- 

 tinct genera. The Hesperoscordum is a very common plant 

 in California; the Allium while no rarity in its special 

 localities is not often met with. One may botanize m its 

 district season after season without once meeting with ± I 

 remember w^ell that when I first came upon it, I paused m 

 admiration of what I took to be a rose-purple variety of the 

 familiar Hesperoscordum lacfevw ; and only upon plucking 

 a cluster of the j^retty flowers and thereby setting afloat the 

 quite unexpected onion smell, did I recognize, or even think 

 of, the genus AlUiim. This different color in the flowers is 

 the only note by which, at a glance, tlie growing plant in 

 CLuestion may be known from its milky white analogue mi 

 there is a variety, or subspecies, not hitherto published, m 

 which the flowers are white.^ 



^ AL..XUM UNIFO.XOM, vur. .ACTEUM. Not.bly less tall, iBore sW and 

 Bucculeut tLau the type, aud somewhat glaucous : P^'^^/^^-f^^^^! all 

 and filameuts decidedly broader, shorter, aud of t^^^^'^^'" '^^ . .. 

 parts of the flower cfear wlute, except the greenish njidvem of the 

 segments._Collected in San Luis Obispo County, (^-'l^^Zli^r 

 Letnmon ; perhaps replacing the type of the species m hose soutu . 

 districts, and something more than a mere albino state oi ii. 



