Spring, or Welsh Onion—Allium fistulosum, Linnæus.
This species was for a long time mentioned in floras and works on horticulture as of unknown origin; but Russian botanists have found it wild in Siberia towards the Altaï mountains, on the Lake Baïkal in the land of the Kirghis.[237] The ancients did not know the plant.[238] It must have come into Europe through Russia in the Middle Ages, or a little later. Dodoens,[239] an author of the sixteenth century, has given a figure of it, hardly recognizable, under the name of Cepa oblonga.
Shallot—Allium ascalonicum, Linnæus.
It was believed, according to Pliny,[240] that this plant took its name from Ascalon, in Judæa; but Dr. Fournier[241] thinks that the Latin author mistook the meaning of the word Askalônion of Theophrastus. However this may be, the word has been retained in modern languages under the form of échalote in French, chalote in Spanish, scalogno in Italian, Aschaluch or Eschlauch in German.
In 1855 I had spoken of the species as follows:[242]—
“According to Roxburgh,[243] Allium ascalonicum is much cultivated in India. The Sanskrit name pulandu is attributed to it, a word nearly identical with palandu, attributed to A. Cepa.[244] Evidently the distinction between the two species is not clear in Indian or Anglo-Indian works.
“Loureiro says he saw Allium ascalonicum cultivated in Cochin-China,[245] but he does not mention China, and Thunberg does not indicate this species in Japan. Its cultivation, therefore, is not universal in the east of Asia. This fact, and the doubt about the Sanskrit name, lead me to think that it is not ancient in Southern Asia. Neither, in spite of the name of the species, am I convinced that it existed in Western Asia. Rauwolf, Forskal, and Delile do not mention it in Siberia, in Arabia, or in Egypt. Linnæus[246] mentions Hasselquist as having found the species in Palestine. Unfortunately, he gives no details about the locality, nor about its wild condition. In the Travels of Hasselquist[247] I find a Cepa montana mentioned as growing on Mount Tabor and on a neighbouring mountain, but there is nothing to prove that it was this species. In his article on the onions and garlics of the Hebrews he mentions only Allium Cepa, then A. porrum and A. sativum. Sibthorp did not find it in Greece,[248] and Fraas[249] does not mention it as now cultivated in that country. According to Koch,[250] it is naturalized among the vines near Fiume. However, Viviani[251] only speaks of it as a cultivated plant in Dalmatia.
“From all these facts I am led to believe that Allium ascalonicum is not a species. It is enough to render its primitive existence doubtful, to remark: (1) that Theophrastus and ancient writers in general have spoken of it as a form of the Allium Cepa, having the same importance as the varieties cultivated in Greece, Thrace, and elsewhere; (2) that its existence in a wild state cannot be proved; (3) that it is little cultivated, or not all, in the countries where it is supposed to have had its origin, as in Syria, Egypt, and Greece; (4) that it is commonly without flowers, whence the name of Cepa sterilis given by Bauhin, and the number of its bulbs is an allied fact; (5) when it does flower, the organs of the flower are similar to those of A. Cepa, or at least no difference has been hitherto discovered, and according to Koch[252] the only difference in the whole plant is that the stalk and leaves are less swelled, although fistulous.”
Such was formerly my opinion.[253] The facts published since 1855 do not destroy my doubts, but, on the contrary, justify them. Regel, in 1875, in his monograph of the genus Allium, declares he has only seen the shallot as a cultivated species. Aucher Eloy has distributed a plant from Asia Minor under the name of A. ascalonicum, but judging from my specimen this is certainly not the species. Boissier tells me that he has never seen A. ascalonicum in the East, and it is not in his herbarium. The plant from the Morea which bears this name in the flora of Bory and Chaubard is quite a different species, which he has named A. gomphrenoides. Baker,[254] in his review of the Alliums of India, China, and Japan, mentions A. ascalonicum in districts of Bengal and of the Punjab, from specimens of Griffith and Aitchison; but he adds, “They are probably cultivated plants.” He attributes to A. ascalonicum Allium sulvia, Ham., of Nepal, a plant little known, and whose wild character is uncertain. The shallot produces many bulbs, which may be propagated or preserved in the neighbourhood of cultivation, and thus cause mistakes as to its origin.
Finally, in spite of the progress of botanical investigations in the East and in India, this form of Allium has not been found wild with certainty. It appears to me, therefore, more probable than ever that it is a modification of A. Cepa, dating from about the beginning of the Christian era—a modification less considerable than many of those observed in other cultivated plants, as, for instance, in the cabbage.