250 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



known as Campanula. There are three crucifers described and 

 figured, each of which stands isolated from all the others. One 

 is Bursa pastoris. 1 Its having been located so far from its allies of 

 the peppergrass kind was but accidental. At the time of the print- 

 ing of those, the shepherd's purse does not appear to have been 

 well known to the author, and his first expression concerning it is 

 that its rightful place is next to what he has called Thlaspidium, 2 i.e. 

 Lepidium ruderale. 



Another of the isolated members is Camelina. 3 In certain dis- 

 tricts it is common, he says, in fields, especially among flax, to 

 which he likens the plant, except as to its having small yellowish 

 flowers. He reports that its seeds ground with grain impart a 

 certain sweetness to bread; also that the oil expressed from this seed 

 is, in his opinion, of a flavor superior to that of olive oil. From 

 many a passage in Tragus it is evident he was accustomed to 

 identify plants as of the cress and mustard alliance by a pungent 

 flavor of the seeds. Possibly in Camelina they lack this quality. 

 Possibly also our author, variously misled, never tested them in 

 this regard, or thought of such an experiment; for he nowhere 

 intimates that the plant is of that alliance. 



The genus Isatis* is a second member of the crucifers whose 

 relationship Tragus shows no sign of having recognized. Possibly 

 he did not know the plant but by hearsay. His draftsman copied 

 Fuchsius' plate of it, and in so doing made the mistake of represent- 

 ing most of the flowers as either five-petalled or six-petalled. It 

 is also to be noted that the fruits of Isatis at first sight are sadly 

 bewildering; pendulous like the samaras of the ash tree, which 

 they also much resemble. In the next generation after Tragus, 

 and by one of the most illustrious of all botanical systematists, 

 Isatis was indeed referred to the crucifers; though even a century 

 after that its right to a place there was disputed. Tragus will, 

 then, be excused for not having guessed this thing to be a cress- 

 mustard ally; nevertheless in describing the fruit he proved that a 

 German father of the sixteenth century in his going " straight 

 to nature," might well have taken with him the old Greek father 

 Dioscorides more often than he did; for Tragus, having described 

 the pendulous pouches or bags that succeed the flowers avers, that 

 " this pouch is the seed of the plant. " Dioscorides in describing the 



1 Stir p. Comm., p. 214. 

 1 Ibid., p. 82. 

 Ibid., p. 655. 

 * Ibid., p. 255. 



