CRUCIFEROUS TRIBE 47 



5. Pepper-wort (Lepkhim). 



1. Broad-leaved Pepper-wort (L. latifdlium). — Leaves oblong, toothed, 

 radical, stalked, smooth ; pouch oval. Plant perennial. The names of this 

 and of some other plants remind us of the days when culinary vegetables 

 were little cultivated, and when condiments were expensive ; of days when 

 Lamb's Lettuce, and Sauce Alone, and Poor Man's Pepper, were welcome 

 additions to the diet. When Pepper was so dear, that to promise a saint 

 yearly a pound of it was a liberal bequest, no wonder that the economical 

 housewife, or the poor one, seasoned her dishes with the pungent leaves 

 of some wild herb, and gave to it the name of Poor Man's Pepper. The 

 young leaves are still sometimes eaten in salad, but their pungency is almost 

 too powerful to be agreeable, though there is no doubt that they were well 

 liked in former times. As Beckmann remarks, " Some plants, both indigenous 

 and foreign, which were formerly raised by art, and used at the table, are 

 no longer cultivated, because we have become acquainted with others more 

 ])eneficial. Many of them served our forefathers in the room of foreign 

 spices, to the use of which trading companies have accustomed us, much 

 to their advantage and our hurt." It is true, also, that many have been 

 Ijanished by fashion, which rules with universal sway, and commands the 

 taste as well as the smell to consider as intolerable articles to which our 

 ancestors had a peculiar attachment. The root of the plant was formerly 

 used instead of Horseradish. It is very large and creeping, and very acrid 

 in flavour. The foliage is of a dull bluish green colour, and its small white 

 flowers, which open in July, grow in crowded leafy clusteis. It is found in 

 salt marshes, and on the sea-coast, but is not frequent. Several species 

 which grow wild in other lands are used as food; and the garden cress, 

 which most of us have, during childhood, cherished on some tiny square 

 of earth, and which will grow even on moistened flannel, is the Lepidium 

 sativum of the botanist. One of the species common in New Zealand, 

 Lepidium oleraceum, is a powerful antiscorbutic, and, in times before our 

 naval crews were furnished with lime-juice, was of essential service to 

 mariners landing there, as it was very beneficial in the complaints induced 

 by salt provisions. This species has the flavour of lettuce. Another kind is 

 very serviceable to the Sandwich Islander, as it inebriates fish, and enables 

 him to capture them readily. The French call our broad-leaved species 

 La passerage. It is Die Kresse of the Germans, the Pepper Kruid of the ' 

 Dutch, and the Lepidio of the Italian and Spaniard. 



2. Narrow-Leaved Pepper-wort {L. nulerdle). — Leaves smooth; 

 lower ones pinnatifid and toothed ; upper ones linear and entire ; petals 

 wanting ; stamens 2. Plants annual. This cress, which flowers in June, in 

 waste places near the sea, is much smaller than the preceding kind. It has 

 a stem about a foot high, much branched, and a great number of seed- 

 vessels. 



3. Field Pepper-wort {L. camphtre). — Leaves downy ; upper ones 

 arrow-shaped at the base ; pouch rough, with minute scales ; style scarcely 

 longer than the notch. Plant annual. This is more frequent than either of 

 the former species. It occui's in corn-fields on dry gravelly soils. It has an 



