Description of the Hollow Leek. 



117 



cottages, or in order to supply a neighbour with bulbs for a 

 fresh plantation. The plants shew very little disposition to 

 produce flowers ; I have seldom, as far as I can recollect, 

 seen them in that state, and they have been growing two 

 years in my garden at Fulham, without shewing any ap- 

 pearance of blossom, though planted in a favourable situ- 

 ation. 



At what time they were introduced into that part of South 

 Wales, from whence I received them, I cannot pretend to 

 say; but it is not improbable, that they originated with 

 the Flemings, from whom, it is said, most of the present 

 inhabitants of the county of Pembroke are descended. 



Whether the Hollow leek is generally used in the more 

 interior parts of Wales, I cannot inform you, but I think it 

 is very likely it may be ; I have also heard, that it is culti- 

 vated in nearly the same way, and for the same purposes, in 

 the west parts of Devonshire and Cornwall, between which 

 places, and the whole of South Wales, there are continual 

 intercourse and dealings. 



In the account of the varieties of the Onion, printed in 

 the Transactions of the Horticultural Society * it is observed, 

 that the appellation of Scallion used by the old gardeners, 

 would have been applied by the writer of that Paper to the 

 Welsh Onion (Album fistulosum of Linneus), but that 

 Miller makes the Scallion distinct from the Welsh Onion. 

 The plant known in England by the name of the Welsh 

 Onion cannot have been so called from its general use in 

 Wales, for it is very remarkable, that during a residence of 

 fourteen years in Pembrokeshire, and in two subsequent 



• Page 379 of this volume. 



