-34 STURTEV ant's NOTES ON EDIBLE PLANTS 



found on the march to Tenochtitlan, cites onions, leeks and garlic. De Candolle ' does 

 not think that these names apply to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane,' in the 

 seventeenth century, had seen the onion only in Jamaica in gardens. The word xonacatl 

 is not in Hernandez,' and Acosta * says expressly that the onions and garlics of Peru came 

 originally from Europe. It is probable that onions were among the garden herbs sown 

 by Columbus at Isabela Island in 1494, although they are not specifically mentioned. 

 Peter Martyr ' speaks of " onyons " in Mexico and this must refer to a period before 1526, 

 the year of his death, seven years after the discovery of Mexico. It is possible that onions, 

 first introduced by the Spaniards to the West Indies, had already found admittance to 

 Mexico, a rapidity of adaptation scarcely impossible to that civilized Aztec race, yet 

 apparently improbable at first thought. 



Onions are mentioned by Wm. Wood,^ 1629-33, as cultivated in Massachusetts; in 

 1648, they were cultivated in Virginia;' and were grown at Mobile, Ala., in 1775.* In 

 1779, onions were among the Indian crops destroyed by Gen. Sullivan ' near Geneva, 

 N. Y. In 1806, McMahon *" mentions six varieties in his list of American esculents. In 

 1828, the potato onion, A. cepa, var. aggregatum G. Don, is mentioned by Thorbum " as 

 a " vegetable of late introduction into our country." Burr ^ describes fourteen varieties. 



Vilmorin ' describes sixty varieties, and there are a number of varieties grown in France 

 which are not noted by him. In form, these may be described as flat, flattened, disc- 

 form, spherical, spherical-flattened, pear-shaped, long. This last form seems to attain an 

 exaggerated length in Japan, where they often equal a foot in length. In 1886, Kizo 

 Tamari," a Japanese commissioner to this country, says, " Otur onions do not have large, 

 globular bulbs. They are grown just like celery and have long, white, slender stalks." 

 In addition to the forms mentioned above, are the top onion and the potato onion. The 

 onion is described in many colors, such as white, dull white, silvery white, pearly white, 

 yellowish-green, coppery-yellow, salmon-yellow, greenish-yellow, bright yellow, pale 

 salmon, salmon-pink, coppery-pink, chamois, red, bright red, blood-red, dark red, purplish. 



But few of oiir modem forms are noticed in the early botanies. The following 

 synonymy includes all that are noted, but in establishing it, it must be noted that many 

 of the figures upon which it is founded are qtiite distinct: 



' De Candolle, A. Geog. Bot. 2:829. 1855. 

 Ibid. 

 ' Ibid. 

 Ibid. 



Eden Hist. Trav. 1577. 

 ' Wood, W. New Eng. Prosp. 2:7. 1634. 

 '' Perf. Desc. Va. 4. 1649. Force Coll. Tracts 2:1838. 

 'Romans Nat. Hist. Fla. 1:115. 1775. 

 Conover, G. S. Early Hist. Geneva 47. 1879. 

 "> McMahon, B. Amer. Card. Col. 582. 1806. . 

 " Thorbum Cat. 1828. 

 " Burr, F. Field, Gard. Veg. 129. 1863. 

 " Vilmorin Les Pis. Potag. 51. 1883. 

 ^*Amer. Hort. Sept lo, 1886. 



