HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



73 



HISTOBY OF OUE CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



No. XVII —SEA-KALE (Crambe maritima). 



HIS excellent and 

 most valuable vege- 

 table in its wild 

 state is found on 

 many parts of sea- 

 coasts, but which 

 the march of mo- 

 dern horticulture 

 has brought into 

 very general culti- 

 vation, belongs to the same 

 natural order as the Cabbage 

 and Turnip tribe, but differs 

 from them by having a globose 

 seed - vessel, containing one 

 seed only. Some authors 

 think that Halmyridia, men- 

 tioned by Pliny, is the same as 

 tnis vegetable ; but the Ro- 

 mans did not cultivate it in 

 their gardens in his time, they 

 used it as a sea provision 

 long voyages; gather- 

 ing it where it grew wild, and 

 cutting it up, they preserved 

 it in barrels, where oil had recently been kept, 

 and then closed them up to prevent the action 

 of the atmosphere. It would be very difficult 

 to ascertain the precise period when this esculent 

 was first used in England as a culinary plant, 

 for on many parts of the seacoast, especially of 

 Devon, Dorset, and Sussex, the inhabitants from 

 time immemorial have been in the practice of pro- 

 curing it for their tables, preferring it to all other 

 greens ; they seek for the plant in the spring where 

 it grows spontaneously, and as soon as it appears 

 above the ground, they remove the pebbles or sand 

 with whicli it is covered to the depth of several 

 inches, and cut off the young and tender leaves and 

 stalks, as yet unexpanded, and in a blanched state, 

 close to the crown of the root ; it is then in its 

 greatest perfection: when the leaves are fully grown 

 No. 136. 



they become hard and bitter, and the plant is not 

 eatable. Our oldest English authorities who give 

 any account of this plant and its habitats are 

 Turner and Gerard. The former, who lived in the 

 sixteenth century, says, in his Herbal, " this herb 

 groweth at Dover hard by the sea-side, and in many 

 other places. I named it Brassica Dobrica, in Eng- 

 lish Dover-cole, because I found it first beside 

 Dover." We also read in the first volume of "Trans- 

 actions of the Horticultural Society," that plants 

 of Sea-kale were sent from this country to the 

 continent by L'Obel and Turner at that early period. 

 Gerard, who observes in his Herbal that the sea 

 colewort groweth naturally upon the beach and 

 brim of the sea where there is no earth to be seen, 

 but sand and rolling pebbles. He found it growing 

 between Whitstable and the Isle of Thanet, aud in 

 many places near Colchester and elsewhere by the 

 seaside. 



Parkinson notices it in his "Paradisus," which 

 was published in 1629, and Bryant also in his " Flora 

 Diabetica," about 1783. Philip Miller has the 

 honour of being the first who wrote upon it pro- 

 fessionally as an esculent, telling us, in the first 

 edition of his " Gardener's Dictionary," published 

 1731, that the inhabitants of Sussex gather the wild 

 plant to eat in the spring, soon after the heads are 

 thrust out of the ground, otherwise it will be tough 

 and rank. Professor Martyn next, in the last edi- 

 tion of the same work, has printed some valuable 

 instructions how to cultivate this plant from the 

 MS. of the Rev. — Laurent. 



It is stated by a writer in the first volume of 

 " Notes and Queries," fourth series, that a person 

 of the name of Morgan, a native of Devon, and 

 gardener in the employ of J. H. Southcote, of Stoke 

 Fleming, cultivated some plants he found growing 

 wild on the beach at Slapton ; they were so appre- 

 ciated by his master, that several roots were sent as 

 presents to Mr. Southcote's friends at Bath: this 

 was about 1775. When once known and talked of 

 in Bath, it soon became found through that part of 



E 



