68 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PL.AJNTS. 



cultivated plant, but there is no other difference. Dr. 

 Kegel, jun., found it to the south of Kuldscha, in Western 

 Siberia.^ Thus my former conjecture? are completely 

 justified ; and it is not unlikely that its habitation extends 

 even as far as Palestine, as Hasselquist said. 



The onion is designated in China by a single sign 

 (pronounced tsung), which may suggest a long existence 

 there as an indigenous plant.^ I very much doubt, how- 

 ever, that the area extends so far to the east. 



Humboldt ^ says that the Americans have always been 

 acquainted with onions, in Mexican xonacatl. "Cortes," 

 he says, " speaking of the comestibles sold at the market 

 of the ancient Tenochtillan, mentions onions, leeks, and 

 garlic." I cannot believe, however, that these names 

 applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in 

 the seventeenth century, had only seen one AUiu'in 

 cultivated in Jamaica [A. Cepa), and that was in a garden 

 with other European vegetables."* The word xonacatl is 

 not in Hernandez, and Acosta ^ says distinctly that the 

 onions and garlics of Peru are of European origiru The 

 species of the genus Allium are rare in America. 



Spring, or Welsh Onion — AlUiim fistulosiim, Linnaeus. 



This species was for a long time mentioned in floras 

 and works on horticulture as of unknown origin ; but 

 Russian botanists have found it wild in Siberia towards 

 the Altai mountains, on the Lake Baikal in the land of 

 the Kirghis.^ The ancients did not know the plant.'' It 

 must have come into Europe through Russia in the 

 Middle Ages, or a little later. Dodoens,^ an author of 

 the sixteenth century, has given a figure of it, hardly 

 recognizable, under the name of Cepa ohionga. 



Shallot — Alliurii ascalonicum, Linnpeus. 



It was believed, according to Pliny ,^ that this plant 



> m. Er^ic, 1^11, p. 167. 



• Bretschneider, Study and Value, etc., pp. 47 and 7. 



• Nouvelle Espagne, 2nd edit., ii- p. 476. 



• Sloane, Jam., i. p. 75. 



• Acosta, Hist. Nat. des Indes, French trans., p. 165. 



• Ledebonr. Flora Rossica, iv. p. 169. 



' Lenz, Bofanik. der Alten Griechen und Bomer, p. 295. 



• Dodoene, Femptades, p. 687. • PHny, Hist., 1. 19, o. ft. 



