258 NOTES ON THE BOTANY 
ually the case at this season of the year, the wind is concen- 
trated by the hills of this bay, and carried with redoubled 
violence into Christmas Harbour, where it spends its terrific 
fury, rendering all our anchors and cables barely available 
for securing the ship, and sometimes forbidding, for many 
days, any communication with the shore. 
“ The first plants to be seen, on landing, are, of course, 
Sea-weeds and Lichens on all the rocks; then come a long 
Grass, an Agrostis, a little Ranunculus, and more abundantly — 
than either, a Composite plant, forming small turfy slopes sui 
ledges, of a bright green hue, among a mass of black bep 2 
earth, covered with a Callitriche and Portulaceous plant. — 
Conspicuous amongst all these, is * the CaBBAGE;" throw- 
ing out its thick round roots, 1-2 inches diameter and ex- 
posed from a few inches to 2 or 3 feet, along the ground, - 
bearing at its extremity, large cabbages, sometimes 18 inches a 
across, of obconical or spathulate, rounded, concave, green 
coriaceous leaves, enfolding a white heart, which eats like — 
coarse, tough mustard and cress. From the sides of the 
heads, issues one, or more, long leafy stems, bearing such. 
spikes of seed-vessels as my specimens, sent to the Admi- 
ralty, will show. The root tastes like Horse-radish, the seeds — 
like those of Cress; but the leaves are the grand fresh pro^ —— 
vision, and were so extremely relished by the sailors, that — 
during the whole of our sojourn in that barren land, they - 
were always boiled with the ship’s company’s beef, pork, oF | 
pea-soup. They taste to me very like very stale cabbage | 
with a most disagreeable essential oil, which resides in cavi* 
ties in the parenchyme of the leaves, and which are very - 
conspieuous on making a transverse section of the heads of : 
leaves. This oil gives to this vegetable a curious anti-heartburn - 
property. Altogether, I consider this cabbage a most inva- 
luable anti-scorbutic, which few persons do not like, or can- - 
not bring themselves to eat, Near the sea it grows in great | 
abundance, and ascends to the tops of the hills, 1,500 fort 
high, where it is small and hairy, but retains all its pt 
perties. o. 
