1865.] KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. ' 39 



natural order Cruciferas, (crux, a cross ; fero, to bear,) in allusion 

 to the petals of the flowers, which are four in number, and arran- 

 ged in the form of a Maltese cross. The horseradish, cress, mus- 

 tard, and the different variety of cabbage and turnip all belong to 

 the same natural order. This plant grows wild on European sea- 

 shores, and various places on the English coast — for instance, at 

 Dover and Penzance, where the shores are rocky. The leaves of 

 the wild cabbage are gyrate, glaucous, wavy, the plant occa- 

 sionally growing from one to two feet in height ; flowers light 

 yellow; pods erect. In spring the sea-cabbage may be gathered 

 and eaten. It was no doubt resorted to as food by the early in- 

 habitants of Great Britain long before any attempt was made at 

 cultivation. The Latin word Brassica is derived from the Celtic 

 Bresic. There is no plant which has produced, by cultivation, a 

 greater number of varieties than the Brassica oleracea. The 

 opinion is generally entertained by botanists, that the white and 

 red cabbage, savoy, borecoles, cauliflower, and brocoli, have all ori- 

 ginally sprung from the wild cabbage of the sea-coasts. Now 

 when varieties reproduce themselves permanently, they become 

 races, and there is evidence that some of these races have been cul- 

 tivated in other countries from the earliest times of which we have 

 any record. Take for example the permanent variety of the red cab- 

 bage [Brassica oleracea, var. rubra), now chiefly used for pickling, 

 which was known to the Romans. As the primitive inhabitants 

 of the different European nations had very little communication 

 with each other, it is probable that the wild cabbage (Brassica 

 oleracea), which grows on the shores of Denmark, France, and 

 the Mediterranean, furnished in every instance the cultivated 

 varieties of those countries. The cabbage was most likely first grown 

 in Great Britain by the Saxons. It was such a favorite with 

 them, that they called the second month of the year Sprout-kale. 



Two leading sub-divisions may be effected of nearly all the va- 

 rieties of the garden cabbage. These varieties are either — 1. 

 Headless cabbages (Brassica oleracea, var. acephala), such 

 as the borecole, the leaves of which continue expanded, . never 

 forming a head ; or, 2. Close-headed cabbages (B. 0., var. 

 capitata), such as the white and red cabbage and the savoy, 

 whose concave leaves are densely imbricated over each other, 

 and form a close compact head before flowering. The word cab- 

 bage is, in fact, derived from the Latin caput, a head, through the 

 French cabus. Brussels sprouts (B. 0.,var. subdanda). This is 



