What wasulpicum?

The Latin wordulpicumis attested thirty-one times. The literary texts in which the term occurs range in date from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. It denotes a plant used in antiquity both as a foodstuff and as an officinal substance in human and animal prescriptions, but discussions ofulpicumin the work of classical scholars show that there is no agreement about its identity. This lack of clarity consequently obfuscates the understanding of the passages in which reference is made to the plant. Furthermore, those students of ancient medicine, botany, and horticulture who depend on translations receive an inaccurate and even misleading impression of the original Latin sources. I propose to demonstrate the present unsatisfactory state both of translations of the term and of efforts by classical scholars to identify the plant, then to review the data supplied by the ancient sources. Following this, I shall suggest that what Latin writers referred to asulpicumis, in fact, the plant known to modern botanists asAllium ampeloprasumL., ‘great-headed garlic’. Finally, I shall investigate its function in the Roman diet and pharmacopeia.

Toward the Identification of Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in Leek: Evaluation of Organellar DNA Diversity among Cultivated Accessions of Allium ampeloprasum

Hybrid leek is more uniform and higher yielding than open-pollinated cultivars and is presently produced by asexual propagation of a genic male-sterile plant. A cheaper method to produce hybrid leek seed would be a system of cytoplasmic-genic male sterility (CMS). Restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) in the organellar genomes have correlated with CMS in many crops. We undertook gel-blot analyses of the chloroplast and mitochondrial DNAs to assess cytoplasmic diversity among 62 accessions of the major cultivated forms of Allium ampeloprasum L. (leek, kurrat, and great-headed garlic). No polymorphisms were detected in the chloroplast genome of leek and kurrat. Three accessions of leek and one of kurrat possessed one or two of seven polymorphic mitochondrial probe-enzyme combinations. Great-headed garlic differed from leek and kurrat for six polymorphisms in the chloroplast genome and for many mitochondrial probe-enzyme combinations. Our analyses revealed few organellar polymorphisms among accessions of leek and kurrat, reducing the probability that selection of polymorphic cytoplasms will reveal CMS in leek.

Antithyroid Activity of Onion Volatiles

In a previous communication (Saghir, Cowan, and Salji 1966) data were presented which showed that n-propyl disulphide, the major volatile constituent of common onion (Allium cepa) , inhibited thyroid activity in the rat. In the present paper, results are reported from further studies on the possible antithyroid activity of four other volatile compounds of Allium: methyl disulphide, allyl disulphide, allyl alcohol, and allyl monosulphide. Along with the n-propyl disulphide previously studied, these four compounds constitute the major volatile constituents of common onion; however, they are present also in other Allium species. Saghir, Mann, Bernhard, and Jacobsen (1964) found that methyl disulphide is the main component of rakkyo (A. chinense) and Chinese chives (A. tuberosum), both favourite food onions in China and Japan. In addition, the American wild Allium species emanate a preponderance of methyl sulphides when the tissues are injured (Saghir, Mann, Ownbey, and Berg 1966). Garlic (A. sativum) and great-headed garlic (A. ampeloprasum) have high proportions of allyl disulphide in their odour; furthermore, allyl monosulphide and allyl alcohol were reported recently as volatiles produced by Allium (Bernhard, Saghir, Jacobsen, and Mann 1964).