SPECIFIC CHARACTER, &C.
Allium, scapo nudo subnullo, capsulis cernuis, foliis planis ciliatis.
Allium, with a naked very short stalk, drooping capsules, and flat ciliated leaves.
Allium Chamæ-Moly. Willd. Sp. Pl. 2. 83.—Cavan. Ic. 3. p. 4. t. 207. f. 1.?
Descriptio. Radix bulbus parvulus. Folia circiter 4, cruciatim disticha, expansa, linearia, subulata, basin versus parum canaliculata, et subcarinata; hirta, præcipue ad margines, unde ciliata. Flores umbellati subsessiles. Scapus brevissimus, reconditus, nudus. Spatha monophylla 3-8-flora, membranacea, 3-cuspidata. Pedunculi perbreves, teretes, superne incrassati, post florescentiam cernui. Petala 6, lanceolato-linearia, obtusa, alba, costâ utrinque virescente. Filamenta 6, tenuissima, alba, petalis duplo breviora. Antheræ luteæ. Germen superum, turbinatum, 6-sulcatum superne umbilicatum. Stylus albus longitudine filamentorum, sed robustior, apice furcatus. Stigmata fere nulla.
REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.
1. The sheath.
2.A flower spread open, magnified.
3.The seed-bud and pointal.
4. The same magnified
Although now an old inhabitant of the British gardens, Allium Chamæ-Moly has ever been considered as a rare and interesting one; and is at present extremely scarce. It has several times been entirely lost to us, and again introduced from the south of Europe; where it occurs spontaneously.
In the Hortus Kewensis of Mr. Aiton, it is marked as a hardy species: perhaps inadvertently: because we never knew it survive a single winter in the open ground near London: notwithstanding our having repeatedly tried it, in situations by no means unfavourable: hence, possibly, its present rarity.
It is properly a hardy green-house plant: requires a light soil, and the treatment of an Ixia: increases both by offsets from the root, and by seeds: and flowers annually in the months of January and February. The leaves die down in April or May. In the structure of the flowers, but not the spathe, it agrees with Allium gracile of this work, which is not the gracile of the Hortus Kewensis. The genus Allium is an extensive one; but the present is the least species in it, and possesses the shortest stalk. Cavanilles describes and figures the style as subulate and entire; but in our plant that part is forked: and the spathe in his plant differs much from ours.[Pg 35]