48 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF OUR GARDEN VEGETABLES. 



spring onions, for salads. De Candolle regards Dodoens' figure of 

 Cepa oblonga as a . " hardly recognisable " one of A. fistulosum. His 

 figure in " Historia Stirpium " is named " Cepa " and evidently is 

 only the common onion and not the Welsh onion. It is figured in 

 Curtis' s Botanical Magazine, No. 1230, 1809. 



GARLIC (Allium sativum, L.) is of great antiquity as a cultivated 

 plant, as indicated by the many names it possesses in different countries. 

 Our word comes from the Welsh garlleg. De Candolle has traced it 

 through many regions and gives the deserts of the Kirghis of Sungari, 

 in the S.W. of Siberia, as the only country with any degree of cer- 

 tainty, as its origin.* Herodotus says that an inscription was on the 

 great pyramid of Egypt in his day, stating that 1600 talents had been 

 paid for onions, radishes and garlic for the workmen who built it prob- 

 ably about 3300 B.C. 



Garlic is mentioned in several vocabularies of plants, from the 

 tenth to the fifteenth centuries, and described by the herbalists of the 

 sixteenth, from 1548 (Turner) onwards. Two British plants are 

 called " Garlic," the wild (A. oleracewn), and the Crow (A. vineale)', 

 both have been used either as pot-herbs or for flavouring. A third 

 species, A . ursinum, called Eansoms, has been eaten in times of 

 scarcity. 



EOCAMBOLE (Allium Scorodoprasum, L.). This species most nearly 

 resembles the garlic, according to some authors; others make it very 

 distinct. It has been said to be "undoubtedly wild" in the Alpes- 

 Maritimes. Another botanist, Ledebour, says it is very common in 

 Bussia from Finland to the Crimea. ' The natural habitat," writes 

 De Candolle, "borders, therefore, on that of A. sativum; or else an 

 attentive study of all the forms will show that a single species, compris- 

 ing several varieties, extends over a great part of Europe and the 

 bordering countries of Asia. "* 



It was not known to the ancients, and its names are chiefly distinc- 

 tive in northern countries, as Denmark, Sweden, Germany, where it 

 was called Rockenbolle, i.e. Bolle, onion, on rocks, Rocken. The 

 Eocambole is a British plant and sometimes called the Sand Leek; it 

 is found in Yorkshire and Lancashire to Fife and Perthshire, as well 

 as in Ireland. 



SHALLOT (Allium Ascalonium, L.). Pliny, in remarking that the 

 Greeks have many kinds of onions, mentions " the Ascalonean, so 

 called from Ascalon, a city of Judaea." This name has been corrupted 

 to eclialote in French, chalote in Spanish, and changed to shallot in 

 English. De Candolle from his historical investigations is not led to 

 consider it as a species, especially as Theophrastus regarded it as a form 

 of A. Cepa, and there is no proof of its being wild anywhere. More- 

 over, it commonly has no flowers, being called Cepa sterilis by Bauhin. 

 This fact indicates a long cultivation by bulbs, as it produces many like 

 the garlic. De Candolle thinks it is a form of A. Cepa, dating from 

 about the beginning of the Christian era. 



* Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 63 ff. 



