Pharmaco-botanologia: or, an alphabetical and classical dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New London dispensatory ... Decad. II / [Patrick Blair].

Patrick Blair

Date:: 1724

Credit: Pharmaco-botanologia: or, an alphabetical and classical dissertation on all the British indigenous and garden plants of the New London dispensatory ... Decad. II / [Patrick Blair]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Imall, round, white Threads from the lower Parts, by which it receives the Nourifhment •, thefe Angle Bulbs being planted early in the Spring, lend forth leveral imall,narrow, darkgreen, graffy Leaves, Concave without, and Convex within, or longitudinally Convex, and hollow like a Sword- blade, and fharp Pointed : Amidft thefe in the Autum (or perhaps not till next Year upon the planting of the whole Root, without feparating of the Bulbs) arifes a Imall, round, Imooth, flreight flowering Stem, one or two Foot high, bearing on the Top a compact Globe, or Tuft of Flow¬ ers *, flrfc involv’d in a common Tunicle, which burfling as the Tuft increa- les, fends forth feveral little hexapetalous Flowers, upon very Imall, ihort Pedicles \ the Petals whitifh,or pale Blew pointed with fix Chives, and a Pointal in the Middle, which afterwards becomes a three-fquare and tricapfular Fruit full of Seeds. Boerhave rightly obferves, that thefe are for the moil part Male-flowers, without any fucceeding Fruit \ but that there are leveral carnous Bulbs in the Interfaces, betwixt the Pedicles of the Flowers, and dole adherent to the top of the Stalk, which being committed to the Ground, encreafes as other bulbs of Roots do} he makes a doubt, whether thele Bulbs are Impregnated by the Male-dufl, as the Seed in Seed-veffels are j but I am of Opinion, thefe are truly Roots, and not Seeds, for its plain, that thele Bulbs on the top of the Stalk do emit Imall Pedicles, which fupport the Male-flowers j and the reafon why the Flowers are not Hermaphrodite, is, because there is lo much Nouriihment bellow’d upon the Bulbs, that the Pointal in the center of the Flower is {larv’d, and the Fruit cannot fwell lo as to per- fe£f the Seed. This happens to other Monocotyledones, as well as bul¬ bous Plants. I have feeu in the bolom'of the Leaf, betwixt it and the Stalk in the Orange-lilly, feveral of thefe Bulbs bur ft forth, which when committed to the Ground, pufti’d forth final] Fibers alfb, and became FvOots. I have alfb obferv’d in a very rainy Karveil, when they did not dare to cut down, the Corns for fear of rotting on the Ground, that the ripe Wheat Hill on the top of the grown Stalk, has fprung forth af¬ ter the fame manner as Barley does in Malting *, becaufe of too great a fupply of Moifture,. we fhall obferve more of this when we come to Ar- thanita. Gar lick Roots fliould be taken up in the Autumn, and the Imall Bulbs planted in the Spring, for if it remain in the Ground all the Winter, each of the Bulbs will fpring forth, and lo the Roots which are only in ufe, will be of no ufe at all. V. The Onion grows like the former, its Root only confifls of one Bulb, which fbmetimes encreaies to a pretty bigneis. The Leaves are Fiftu- lous, which is peculiar to this Plant. It do’s not flower the firffc Year, but in or(|er to render the Root (which grows foperficially in the Ground) the bigger they trample down the Leaves, and in the Autumn take up the4 Root,$