Part 89

ALLIUM GRACILE.

Sweet-scented Garlic.

CLASS VI. ORDER I.

HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. Six Chives. One Pointal.

GENERIC CHARACTER.

CALYX. Spatha communis, subrotunda, marcescens, multiflora.

COROLLA. Petala sex, oblonga.

STAMINA. Filamenta sex, subulata, longitudine sæpe corollæ. Antheræ oblongæ, erectæ.

PISTILLUM. Germen superum, breve, subtrigonum, angulis linea insculptis. Stylus simplex. Stigma acutum.

PERICARPIUM. Capsula brevissima, lata, triloba, trilocularis, trivalvis.

SEMINA pauca, subrotunda.

EMPALEMENT. Spath common, roundish, withering, inclosing many flowers.

BLOSSOM. Petals six, oblong.

CHIVES. Six threads, awl-shaped, often the length of the blossom. Tips oblong, upright.

POINTAL. Seed-bud above, short, nearly three-sided, the angles marked by a line. Shaft simple. Summit pointed.

SEED-VESSEL. Capsule very short, broad, of three lobes, three cells, and three valves.

SEEDS a few, roundish.

SPECIFIC CHARACTER.

Allium scapo nudo, tereti, longissimo; foliis canaliculatis, linearibus; umbella multiflora; corollis albidis; staminibus subulatis, ad basin cum petalis desinentibus in tubum.

Garlic with a naked flower-stem, cylindrical, and very long; leaves channelled, and linear; umbel many flowered; blossoms white; chives awl-shaped, terminating with the petals at the base in a tube.

REFERENCE TO THE PLATE.

1. The Blossom cut open. 2. One Petal of the Blossom and its Chive, magnified. 3. The Pointal and Seed-bud. 4. A Capsule with ripe Seeds.

From a plant in the collection of J. Vere, Esq. Kensington Gore, our drawing was made, this year, early in the month of May; and from an accurate scrutiny, are inclined to think it might be considered as a new genus; for certainly it does not well affine to the one here assigned it, in several instances; but as our professed principles are, as rarely as possible, to increase the number of genera, we have retained it under Allium. The flowers of this plant are fragrant in the extreme, at night; so much so, that one is sufficient to scent a large room; the flavour something like the Heliotrope. Being a native of Barbadoes, from whence it was sent by Mr. J. Ellcock in 1791, to Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith, it requires the heat of a hothouse, where, without the assistance of the bark bed, it will flower, and increase from the bulb abundantly.

PLATE CVIII.

GERANIUM RENIFORME.

Kidney-shape-leaved Geranium.

CLASS XVI. ORDER IV. Of Suppl. system. Veget. 1781.

MONODELPHIA DECANDRIA. Threads united. Ten Chives.