STURTEVANT S NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 33 



the country people call unionem, and this word seems to be the origin of our word, onion, 

 the French ognon. Pliny,i 79 A. D., devotes considerable space to cepa, and says the 

 round onion is the best, and that red onions are more highly flavored than the white. 

 Palladius,^ 210 A. D., gives minute directions for culture. Apicius,' 230 A. D., gives a 

 number of r^ipes for the use of the onion in cookery but its uses by this epicurean writer 

 are rather as a seasoner than as an edible. In the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus * 

 describes the onion but does not include it in his list of garden plants where he speaks of 

 the leek and gariic, by which we would infer, what indeed seems to have been the case 

 with the ancients, that it was in less esteem than these, now minor, vegetables. In the 

 sixteenth centiuy, Amatus Lusitanus^ says the onion is one of the commonest of veg- 

 etables and occurs in red and white varieties, and of various qualities, some sweet, others 

 strong, and yet others intermediate in savor. In 1570, Matthiolus* refers to varieties 

 as large and small, long, round and flat, red, bluish, green and white. Laurembergius,' 

 1632, says onions differ in form, some being round, others, oblong; in color, some white, 

 others dark red; in size, some large, others small; in their origin, as German, Danish, 

 Spanish. He says the Roman colonies during the time of Agrippa grew in the gardens 

 of the monasteries a Russian sort which attained sometimes the weight of eight pounds. 

 He calls the Spanish onion oblong, white and large, excelling all other sorts in sweetness 

 and size and says it is grown in large abundance in Holland. At Rome, the sort which 

 brings the highest price in the markets is the Caieta; at Amsterdam, the St. Omer. 



There is a tradition in the East, as Glasspoole * writes, that when Satan stepped out 

 of the Garden of Eden after the fall of man, onions sprang up from the spot where he 

 placed his right foot and garlic from that where his left foot touched. 



Targioni-Tozzetti * thinks the onion wiU probably prove identical with A. fistulosum 

 Linn., a species having a rather extended range in the mountains of South Russia and 

 whose southwestern limits are as yet unascertained. 



The onion has been an inmate of British gardens, says Mcintosh, '" as long as they 

 deserve the appellation. Chaucer," about 1340, mentions them: " Wei loved he garleek, 

 onyons and ek leekes." 



Hiunboldt '^ says that the primitive Americans were acquainted with the onion and 

 that it was called in Mexican xonacatl. Cortez," in speaking of the edibles which they 



' Pliny lib. 19, c. 32. 



Palladius lib. 3, c. 24. 



Apicjus Opson. 1709. 



Albertus Magnus Veg. Jessen Ed. 487. 1867. 

 Dioscorides Amatus Lusitanus Ed. 273. 1554. 



Matthiolus Comment 389. 1570. 



' Laurembergius Apparat. Plant. 27. 1632. 

 Glasspoole, H. G. Ohio State Bd. Agr. Rpt. 29:422. 1874. 

 Targioni-Tozzetti Journ. Hort. Soc. Land. 9: 147. 1855. 

 " Mcintosh, C. Book Card. 2:31. 1855. 

 " Chaucer Prologue V 634. 1340. 

 De CandoUe, A. Geog. Bo/. 2:829. 1855. 

 "Ibid. 



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