waved fibrous roots, and supporting 1 to 4 oblique, slender,
tapering, solid, white bulbs, each inclosed separately in the
tubular base of 1 or 2, rarely 3, leaves, which is tinged more
or less with purple and sheathed with several brown scariose
coats. Leaves spreading, decurved and waved, as thick as a
goose-quill,fistular, cylindrical, or flattened or slightly grooved
on the upper side, tapering to a bluntish point, glaucous,
finely striate, the striae minutely crenulate. Scape 12-18
inches high, arising collaterally with the bulb from the root-
stock within the base of the leaves, which invests about a
quarter of its length with a close cylindrical sheath, an inflation
occurring just below the point of emersion, and a
contraction and an internal septum in the continuation of
the leaf just above*; it exactly fills the opening, and is
clasped by its pale, narrow, filmy edge; it is nearly as thick
as the leaves, and roughish, like them, with minutely crenulate
striae, solid throughout, or more or less hollow in the
upper part, often much waved, and usually nodding just before
the flowers expand; it overtops the leaves in consequence of
their curvature, although they often exceed it in length; in
this respect however they vary. Umbel of numerous crowded
flowers, on stalks of scarcely their own length. It is hemispherical,
sometimes almost globose, but becomes somewhat
“ conical ” or “ pyramidal ” as the central flowers, which expand
first and have the longest stalks, begin to collapse.
Spatha of 2 roundish, mucronate, concave, scariose valves,
which rarely separate to the base, not so long as the flowers.
Perianth bell-shaped, obsoletely trigonal; segments flat, elliptical,
separated a little by narrow sinuses at the base, slightly
overlapping each other in the middle, their apex a little complicate,
rounded and almost emarginate in the inner ones,
more acute, rather suddenly tapered, and slightly reflexed in
the outer; their colour violet purple, varying in tint, with a
dark greenish line along the middle, extending not quite to
the apex. Stamens half as long as the perianth, their filaments
slightly connected, smooth, white or purplish, subulate,
alternate ones from a rather wider and more deeply hollowed
base; anthers bluish, pollen almost white. Germen pale,
* In barren plants of one leaf, the place of these is indicated by a short
solid portion in the otherwise fistulose leaf, with a small external seam just
below it, a little above the inclosed bulb.
spheroid-trigonal, of three lobes, with a deep round honey-
pore at the base of each below a small pale triangular depression.
Style arising centrally from the base of the lobes of the
germen, which closely encompass it, subulate, varying in
length, of the same tint as the filaments. Stigma simple, or
very slightly incrassated. Capsule but half as long as the
shrivelled perianth, 3-celled, the septa in the middle of the
valves, which separate to the base. Seeds 2 in each cel], irregularly
triquetrous, black, shining. Spatha, perianth, filaments
and style, all persistent, becoming, when the flowering
is past, first red, then grey and scariose. The flower is occasionally
white, and the anthers then are white also.
Notwithstanding its constancy under nine years’ cultivation,
it is with much hesitation that we propose this plant as a distinct
species. A. Schcenoprasum, the Chives of the kitchen-
garden, is but half as large, and differs much in appearance
by its upright habit and clustered growth; the leaves ol its
perianth are narrower, and taper more gradually to a sharper
point. In the form usually cultivated the scape is often variously
angular, and as soft and fistulose as the leaves; and
both leaves and scape, though minutely striated, are perfectly
smooth. This last character, apparently important, is however
of no value, for in wild plants of the same habit precisely,
kindly sent by Mr. John Thompson from different places in
the neighbourhood of Walltown, Northumberland, the striae
are rough, as in our Cornish plant. We have three other
nearly allied Allia in cultivation: one of them, presumed to
be the A. folioswm of Clairon, in DeCand. FI. Fr. v. 3. p. 725
(although Redoute’s figure is not much like it), is twice as
large as our A. sibiricum, which it much respmbles in its
flowers; but the leaves of these are more acute and more
spreading, the stamens longer in proportion, with the anthers
dull yellow, and the scape and leaves are perfectly smooth
and without raised striae. The leaves of this curve a little
outwards, and it probably is the “A. Schcenoprasum (3. Linn.”
of Murray in Comm. Soc. Gott. v. 6. p. 33. t. 4. Another we
believe to be A.Schcenoprasum (Z. major of Gawler, in Bot. Mag.
1141. It is a smaller plant than the last-mentioned, with
which it agrees in smoothness; its flowers open widely, and
their segments are acute and not imbricate; its anthers are
bluish, as in our plant. The third alluded to we cannot refer