10 THE CAULIFLOWER. 



cultivated forms of this species Theophrastus dis- 

 tinguished three, Pliny, six; Tournefort, twenty; 

 and De Candolle, in 1821, more than thirty. For 

 a lonty time this plant was used for food in a 

 slightly improved state before heads of any 

 kind were developed. Sturtevant, quotes Oliver de 

 Serres, as saying that, "White cabbages came from 

 the north, and the art of making them head was un- 

 known in the time of Charlemagne." He adds 

 that the first unmistakable reference to our head- 

 ed cabbage that he finds is by Eullius, who in 1536 

 mentions globular heads, a foot and a half in diam- 

 eter. It was probably about this time that the 

 cauliflower, and several other forms of the species 

 made their appearance. There is difPerence of 

 opinion as to whether our cauliflowers or the 

 broccolis were first to originate. Loudon be- 

 lieved that the broccolis, which Miller says first 

 came to England from Italy in 1719, were de- 

 rived from the cauliflower. Phillips, in his 

 " History of Cultivated Vegetables," said, in 1822, 

 that the broccoli appears to be an accidental mix- 

 ture of the common cabbage and the cauliflower, 

 but of this he gives no proof. 



Sturtevant says: "It is certainly very curious 

 that the early botanists did not describe or figure 

 the broccoli. The omission is only explainable on 

 the supposition that it was confounded with the 



