GARLIC 145 
and is not. a bit like a grass or a sedge. Notice the 
parallel-veined leaves. What I have called petals 
are really the six segments of the perianth. The 
flowers grow in umbels, and you will see that 
before they break out—that is, when they are in 
the bud stage—they are enclosed in a green kind 
of envelope, called the spatha. Open one of these 
budlike arrangements; see the young flowers ex- 
quisitely folded within the spatha. Their flower- 
stalks, or pedicels, are coiled up in a wonderful way. 
- When the spatha is burst open, the pedicels will 
straighten themselves out and hold up the flowers 
just as you see them doing in this other specimen. 
Bruise this leaf and then smell it. You have no 
difficulty in distinguishing the smell of onions. 
This plant is the Broad-leaved Garlic or Ramsons 
(Allium ursinum) ; it is a lily, and belongs to the 
Natural Order Liliaceze. Don’t confuse the Broad- 
leaved Garlic with the common Garlic Mustard, or 
Sauce Alone (Alliaria officinalis). The last-named 
plant grows in hedge-banks and open places in woods; 
it is a Dicotyledon, and of the Natural Order Cruci- 
ferse. It alsosmells of garlic when bruised. The Broad- 
leaved Garlic sometimes grows in great profusion in 
damp woods and on moist hedge-banks. Its pure white 
flowers are very effective, but they soon droop when 
gathered, and we do not court them on account of 
their disagreeable smell (see photo on Plate 17, d). 
I shall now bring this chapter to a rapid. con- 
clusion. I have told you how to proceed in the 
identification of flowers, and must leave you to 
follow my suggestions. I may as well warn you 
that you will not always find your work such plain 
19 
