cluster of white subglobose bulbs about as large as hazel-nuts*
with a few stalked offsets of similar shape, and among them,
when fertile, a scape or two, all sheathed in the expanded
base of an outer leaf. Leaves 1-3 to each bulb, lax, twisted
above, grass-green, glabrous and even, from a sheathing base,
concave above, acutely and obliquely keeled beneath, and so
thickened along the middle as to be unequally triquetral in
the lower part, gradually flattening upwards, and tapering to
the callus-tipped point. Scape 6—12 inches, tapering, acutely
triangular, with two sides concave. Umbel with few flowers,
twelve at most, drooping to one side, on unequal triquetral
stalks, thickened below the flower. Spatha of two nearly
equal, narrow, acuminate, pale, scariose valves, about as long
as the flower-stalks. Perianth campanulate, about as long as
the flower-stalk, white; the segments obtuse, marked along
the middle, almost to the apex, with a single green line,
darkest within; outer segments rather wider, with a minute
apiculus. Stamens not half so long as the perianth, to which
they are united at the base; filaments all subulate, white;
simple. Germen obscurely trigonal; honey-pores inconspicuous.
Style slender, trigonal, shorter than the stamens,
closely embraced below by the lobes of the ovary, from which
it is scarcely separable to the base till the capsule ripens; its
apex trifid, with minutely capitate stigmas, at length recurved.
Capsule subturbinate, on a rather narrower base; the summit
depressed; opening with three quadrate valves. Seeds two
in each cell, black, gibbous, trigonal, with a fleshy white
stalk. Every part of the flower is persistent. The whole
plant has the garlic scent.
Bertoloni observes that A. triquetrum of Redoute, lib. 6.
t. 329, is more like A. pendulinum than this species. The
figures quoted are inaccurate as to the position of the flowers.
—W. B.