The Description.

            1. The Onion hath narrow leaves, and hollow within; the stalk is single, round, biggest in the middle, on the top whereof groweth a round head covered with a thin skin or film, which being broken, there appear little white flowers made up in form of a ball, and afterward black seed three-cornered, wrapped in thin white skins. Instead of the root there is a bulb or round head compact of many coats, which oftentimes becometh great in manner of a Turnip, many times long like an egg. To be brief, it is covered with very fine skins for the most part of a whitish colour.

            2. The red Onion differeth not from the former but in sharpness and redness of the roots, in other respects there is no difference at all.

            3. There is also a Spanish kind, whose root is longer than the other, but in other respects very little different.

Fig. 290. Scallions (4)

            4. There is also another small kind of Onion, called by Lobel, Ascalonitis Antiquorum, or Scallions; this hath but small roots, growing many together: the leaves are like to Onions, but less. It seldom bears either stalk, flower, or seed. It is used to be eaten in salads.

The Place

            The Onion requireth a fat ground well digged and dunged, as Palladius saith. It is cherished everywhere in kitchen gardens: it is now and then in beds sown alone, and many times mixed with other herbs, as with Lettuce, Parsnips, and Carrots. Palladius liketh well that it should be sown with Savory, because, saith Pliny, it prospereth the better, and is more wholesome.

The Time.

            It is sown in March or April, and sometimes in September.

The Names.

            The Onion is ealled in Latin, Cepa, and many times Cepe in the neuter gender: the shops keep that name. The old writers have given unto this many surnames of the places where they grow, for some are named Cipriæ, Sardiæ, Samothraciæ, Ascaloniæ, of a town in Judea, otherwise called Pompeiana: in English, Onions. Moreover, there is one named Marisca, which the country-men call Unio saith Columella; and thereupon it cometh that the Frenchmen call it Oignon, as Ruellius thinkth: and peradventure the Low-Dutch men name it Aueuim, of the French word corrupted: they are called Setaniæ which are very little and sweet; and these are thought to be those which Palladius nameth Cepullæ, as though he called them parvæ Cepæ, or little Onions.

            There is an Onion which is without an head or bulb, and hath as it were a long neck, and spends itself wholly in the leaves, and it is often cropped or cut for the pot like the Leeks. Of this Pliny writeth, in his nineteenth book, and sixth chapter. There is with us two principal sorts of Onions, the one serving for a sauce, or to season meat with, which some call Gethyon, and others Pallacana; and the other is the headed or common Onion, which the Germans call Onionzboibel: the Italians, cipolla: the Spaniards, Cebolla, Ceba, and Cebola.

The Temperature.

            All Onions are sharp, and move tears by the smell. They be hot and dry, as Galen saith, in the fourth degree, but not so extreme hot as Garlic. The juice is of a thin watery and airy substance: the rest is of thick parts.

The Virtues.

            A. The Onions do bite, attenuate, or make thin, and cause dryness: being boiled they do lose their sharpeness, especially if the water be twice or thrice changed, and yet for all that they do not lose their attenuating quality.

            B. They also break wind, provoke urine, and be more soluble boiled than raw; and raw they nourish not at all, and but a little though they be boiled.

            C. They be naught for those that are choleric, but good for such as are replete with raw and phlegmatic humours; and for women that have their terms stayed upon a cold cause, by reason they open the passages that are stopped.

            D. Galen writeth, That they provoke the haemorrhoids to bleed if they be laid unto them, either by themselves, or stamped with vinegar.

            E. The juice of Onions sniffed up into the nose, purgeth the head, and draweth forth raw phlegmatic humors.

            F. Stamped with salt, rue, and honey, and so applied, they are good against the biting of a mad dog.

            G. Roasted in the embers, and applied, they ripen and break cold apostumes, boils, and such like.

            H. The juice of Onions mixed with the decoction of Pennyroyal, and anointed upon the gouty member with a feather, or a cloth wet therein, and applied, easeth the same very much.

            I. The juice anointed upon a pilled or bald head in the sun, bringing again the hair very speedily.

            K. The juice taketh away the heat of scalding with water or oil, as also burning with fire and gun-powder, as is set forth by a very skilful Chirurgeon named Master William Clowes, one of the Queen's Chirurgeons; and before him by Ambrose Parey, in his Treatise of Wounds made by Gunshot.

            L. Onions diced, and dipped in the juice of Sorrel, and given unto the sick of a tertian ague, to eat, take away the fit in once or twice so taking them.

The Hurts.

            The Onion being eaten, yea though it be boiled, causeth head-ache, hurteth the eyes, and maketh a man dim lighted, dulleth the senses, engendereth windiness, and provoketh overmuch sleep, especially being eaten raw.