348 WHAT IS THE THAMES-SIDE BRASSICA ? 
Apparently, there is the excellent authority of Mr. Syme for the 
name which is adopted in the ‘ Flora of Middlesex;' but Mr. J. T. 
Syme's use of the name is quoted from a record in the * Phytologist ’ 
so long back as 1852. I recognize in the present Mr. Boswell-Syme, 
of ‘English Botany,’ third edition, our best living authority for the 
nomenclature and description of British plants. And I propose here 
to show, in reliance on his own words, that he could not possibly now 
refer the Thames-side plant to Napus, although he. may erroneously 
have done so in 1852, through not then having become familiar with 
it in its early growth,—say, between August and April. In the third 
edition of * English Botany, in which the descriptions of our British 
plants are so ably re-written by its editor, we find an aggregate Bras- 
sica polymorpha subdivided into three segregates or subspecies, which 
are thus distinguished by their diagnostic characters and places of 
growth :— 
(1.) Brassica Napus.—Leaves all glaucous and glabrous. Flowers 
remaining till the eorymb expands into a short raceme.—A weed in 
cultivated ground, or more frequently the remains of a field of Rape- 
or Cole-seed. 
(2.) Brassica campestris.— Leaves all glaucous, the radical ones 
hispid, the rest glabrous. Flowers falling off before the corymb 
lengthens into a raceme.—A weed in cultivated ground, and by the 
banks of rivers and ditches. ‘ Swedish Turnip.” 
(3.) Brassica Rapa.—Radical leaves green not glaucous, hispid ; 
stem leaves glaucous and glabrous. Flowers falling off before the 
corymb lengthens into a raceme.—A straggler in cultivated ground, 
usually the remains of a field of Turnips. ‘The Turnip.” 
The editor remarks on the difficulty of distinguishing his third sub- 
species from the other two, and he states that B. campestris is the 
only one which can be considered at all “well established? in this 
country. Yet, if the characters assigned to the first subspecies are 
correct, it should be easy to show that the Thames-side plant cannot 
be Napus, whatever else it may be pronounced. Its radical leaves are 
neither glaucous nor glabrous, being dark grass-green and much his- 
pid; and the petals fall early, leaving the elongated raceme formed of 
young pods, not of flowers. How thus can it be Napus? Surely 
not because it wants all the three distinctive characters attributed to 
Napus! Moreover, it is not simply “a weed in cultivated ground,” 
