288 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND PLANTS 
EpisLe Roots 
As has been indicated, certain roots have the habit of storing 
large quantities of starch, which greatly enlarges their size and 
acts as food material later on. Such plants commonly act as 
biennials in the temperate climate, growing and storing food 
one year, and sending up a stem and producing seed the next.! 
The onion (Allium cepa). This savory root has been known 
from early times. The Greeks and Romans knew several varie- 
ties, as did the Egyptians. It has also long been cultivated in 
the various countries of southern and eastern Asia, under vari- 
ous names that have no similarity or other sign of philological 
connection. y 
The species has been found wild in western Asia in various 
localities, ranging from Palestine to Beluchistan, a fact which 
seems to satisfactorily settle its eastern origin. 
On the other hand, both the onion and the leek were found 
common in America, all of which seems to be a puzzle to Can- 
dolle, who remarks that species of the genus A//inm are exceed- 
ingly rare in America. On this point he could not have been 
well informed, for if the number of related species be few, they 
are certainly well and widely diffused. All pioneers will testify 
to the early abundance of the common wild leek (A//ewm tricoc- 
cum), to the great detriment of the butter of those days,’ as we 
of our own time know the wild onion of various species to be 
1 In tropical countries this seed production need not wait till the second 
year, but may proceed directly upon the accumulation of sufficient store of 
food for the rapid maturing of seed. Here all distinctions as to annual, bien- 
nial, and perennial disappear. The century plant has the same habit, except 
that the food material is stored in the leaves rather than in the roots, and very 
much more than a single year is required. It does not require, however, as the 
name indicates, a full century before bloom. In most cases it is probably nearer 
a decade. 
2 The cows running in the woods and wild pastures ate freely of the wild 
leeks, which often were so abundant as to give a grassy-green appearance 
to the forests in the early spring. This so strongly affected the milk and 
butter with the disagreeable flavor of the leek as often to make the product 
unsalable, indeed uneatable. 
