G8 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



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

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

 Siberia.-^ Thus my former conjectures 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 tsimfj), which may suggest a long existence 

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

 ever, that tlie 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, howev^er, that these names 

 applied to the species cultivated in Europe. Sloane, in 

 the seventeenth centurv, had onlv seen one Allmm 

 cultivated in Jamaica (^i. Cepa), and tliat 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 origin. The 

 species of the genus Allium are rare in America. 



Spring, or Welsh Onion — Allhun fistudosum, Linnreus. 



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 

 tlie 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 Pussia 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 oblonga. 



Shallot — Allium ascalonicum, Linnaeus. 



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



» ni. Hortic, 1877, p. 167. 



' Bretscbneider, Study and Vahie, 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. 1G5. 



* Ledebour, ^lora Rossica, iv. p. 169. 



* Lenz, Botanik. der Alten Griechen vnd Bomer, p. 205. 



" Dodoens, Bemptadcs, p. 687. ' Plinj, Uist., 1. 19, o. 6. 



