186 M, De Canddlle on the Species and Varieties 



of a pale apricot colour on the outside and inside : it is not 

 so common as the white kind, neither does it grow to so large 

 a size, but it deserves the preference for culinary purposes, 

 being much sweeter than the former. The Black Turnip, 

 nigricans, known to most of the ancients *, I have never seen, 

 nor am at all acquainted with. The Red Turnip, punicea, 

 has the skin of the fleshy part red, and appears to be a slight 

 degeneration of the white species. Lastly, the Green Turnip, 

 viridis, mentioned by the ancients, is more likely to prove an 

 accidental variety than a permanent one. 



Second Race. Buassica Rapa oBLONGAf. 

 This race differs essentially from the preceding in the shape 

 of its root, which forms an oblong tuber, growing insensibly 

 thunier till it ends in a radicle ; it is less fleshy than the flat- 

 tened Turnip, but with respect to its foliage and flavour, it 

 bears a strong resemblance to the latter, and has not unfre- 

 quently been confounded with it by modern botanists. The 

 ancients, on the contrary, distinguished it perfectly well, and 

 described it in most of their works under the name of Rapa 

 oblonga. It is now so little cultivated that I have not been 

 able to collect more than a few plants scattered here and there 

 under different denominations, in the several countries where 

 I have studied rural productions, and I have constantly seen 

 it of a, white colour. When more particularly attended to, 

 I shall not be surprised to find it offers the same variety of 

 colour as the flattened Turnip. In speaking of it, several an- 

 cient botanists have cited examples of the enormous weight 

 to which it arrives. Matthiolus % speaks of an oblong Turnip 

 weighing thirty pounds ; those I have seen were, on the con- 

 trai-y, considerably less in size and weight than the flattened 

 Turnip ; however, the Rapa oblonga is exactly intermediate 

 between that and the following variety. 



Third Race. Brassica Rapa oleifera. 

 Wild or oleiferous Turnip. 

 This third race of Turnips appears to be the wild type of 

 the species, or at least is very near to a wild state ; it is distin- 

 guished from the two preceding varieties by its root being 



* C. Bauhin's Pinax, 89-90.— Tournefort Inst. 238. 



f Oblong Turnips are well known to the English farmers, by whom they 

 are grown, under the names of Tankard Turnips and Decanter Turnips j 

 there are white and red varieties of these ; the roots being of looser texture, 

 they are less able, to support the severity of our winters, and therefore are 

 used for autumnal feeding, before they can be injured by frosts. — Sec. 



X Matthiolus Coiinii, page .330. 



slender, 



