286 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



Portsmouth, as ii comes in use before any of the spring-sown ones ; and in that c?sc, 

 the cultivators find a ready market for them, in the purveyors for the East Indiainen 

 and other ships destined for long voyages, which leave England at a season, when 

 no other onion would be in a condition to take into their stores. It is a useful oniun, 

 and will afford a supply slrould the other crops from seed suffer by grubs or other 

 accidents. It does not keep beyond February. This species has been erroneously 

 supposed to have been brought from Egypt by the British army about 1805, but it 

 was known in this country many years before that time. It is, and has been culti- 

 vated in Devonshire for many years, and is described as growing in Driver's nursery 

 ill 1796. It is cultivated in the >'icinity of Grand Cairo, and esteemed among the 

 Egyptians, who are partially fond of almost all the alliceous plants. 



The tree, or bulb-bearing onion, AUium cepa \»ar. vivipara, came originally firom 

 Canada, where the climate being too cold for onions to flower and seed, becomes (aa 

 in the cases of many Alpine grasses, for example, Poa et Fettuca f'ivipara) viviparous, 

 and bears bulbs instead of flowers. This is one of Nature's grand provisions for the 

 propagation of plants, when the summer is not of sufficient duration for the per- 

 fecting of the flowers and seeds, by the regular mode of impregnation, &c By a 

 mode peculiar to herself. Nature changes the parts of fructification from their natiiral 

 dispositions, and forms them into bulbs or embryo plants, which, when sufficiently 

 natured, drop down, and either strike root that autumn, or else he dormant till the 

 return of another short summer, when they shoot up, and become plants similar to 

 their parents. This curious mode of propagation is common in the Alpine regions, 

 and is not only exemplified in the two grasses above-mentioned, but in that rare 

 plant, Sajrifraga cernua, in Polygonium vivipara, and many others. This spedes of 

 Allium is not hkely to come into general cultivation, although the caulme bulbs, 

 when planted, become onions of a good size. It is our opinion, that the largest of 

 the cauline bulbs are calculated for pickling ; at least it would be worth while to 

 make the experiment. 



ScALLiox. Miller mentions this as a distinct species ; but some only consider it 

 to be the Welsh onion, and others think it is a sort of hollow leek, a species o( Allium 

 grown in Pembrokeshire, and other parts of South Wales, with a cluster of bulbs 

 like that of eschalots. 



Parslev, — Apium Pelroselinum, (Linn.) — belongs to the class and order Pen- 

 tandrla Trlgynia, and to the natural order Umhelliferct. It is a native of Sardinia, 

 and was introduced in 154S, but is now naturalized to Britain. It is found in waste 

 places, but generally near old gardens. The sorts in cultivation are, the common 

 plain-leaved, the curled tliick-leaved, and the long-rooted or Hamburg parsley. 

 The first is seldom cultivated, and should be exploded from our gardens, as, in its 

 general appearance, it is often mistaken both fur hemlock, Conium m iculaium^ and 

 Fool's parsley, ^Ethtisa cynapium, both of which are deleterious, the former being 

 one of our most powerful vegetable poisons. The curled-leaved is both a much 

 finer and a more beautiful >ort. and, by generally adopting its cultivation, no risk 

 would be run of mistaking it tor either of the two plants above-mentioned. There 

 is a sub-variety, called the giant-parsley, which grows large, and is preferable to the 

 others. The Hamburg sort is cultivated for iti long fleshy roots, and \^as probably 

 mtroduced or much cultivated near Hamburg, from which place it derives its name. 

 No seed sown in the culinary garden remains so long under ground as that of 

 jwrsley : this circumstance should be taken into consideration at the time of sowing. 



Parsnep, — Pasi'maca Saliva, ( Lin '».)— belongs to the class and order Pentaitdria 

 Digynia, and to the natural order UmbcUiffra. Is a native of Britain, and abounds 

 in chalky fields, and road-sides in many parts of Hampshire, Surrey, and Kent. It 

 ia astonishing to see to what a depth the roots of thi^ plant will penetrate into hard 



