GREEN VEGETABLES. 37 



of the leaves of the stem are retained the great mass of the foliage 

 below the terminal branch is due to the development of the auxiliary 

 buds, the leaves of which are sessile and much curled and crisped; 

 not growing out into shoots, as in the ; * thousand-headed kale." 



Gerard gives two other figures of kales in which leaves are retained 

 almost to the root ; and in these the stems have grown upwards so as 

 to lengthen the internodes and prevent the rosette or head forming. 

 The leaves in both are finely divided, so he calls them Brassica 

 selimsia, the parsley colewoort, and B. selinoides, fine-cut colewoort. 

 He says it was not much known, and he is the first to describe it. 

 A form somewhat resembling these still appears as a ' ' sport, ' ' but 

 I am not aware of its being cultivated. However, Gerard was wrong in 

 saying that he was the first to describe the laciniate types; for 'two, 

 called Brassica crispa Tragi and B. tenuifolia recimata, are figured in 

 " Historia Plantarum, " 1586. 



No. 2, which Gerard calls B. Saliva crispa, or * Curled garden 

 cole,' only differs from No. 1 in having a naked stem below and the 

 leaves rather more cut and very slightly curled at the edges; the most 

 primitive condition of the " crisped " forms of to-day. 



No. 10 is another form of the last, having the whole margin 

 strongly revolute. Gerard describes it as B. taphosa (apparently from 

 a rough resemblance to pumice-stone); "the swolen Colewoorte of al 

 other is the strangest; it came from Fraunce." One or two modern 

 kinds certainly approximate to it. Thus Mr. Button writes me as 

 follows : "I am struck with the close resemblance of the plant 

 [B. tophosa of Gerard] to two types of kale which are well known 

 in the trade to-day. One is the Chou palmier of France, or palm-tree 

 kale of England. [A bullated form, but not with the margins so 

 much ' revoluted ' as in tophosa.] The other is the Welsh tree kale, 

 growing from four to five feet high, and producing an abundance 

 of similar leaves up to the stem with a pyramidal habit. The leaves 

 of the Welsh kale much more resemble those of Gerard's picture, 

 being very much curved back." 



The Borecole, so called from the Dutch boerenlcool, meaning 

 " peasant's cabbage," is a hardy form of kale, with the leaves loose and 

 much curled. It is apparently almost a crisped form of the wild 

 cabbage; the foliage may be green or purple, or sometimes variegated 

 with red or yellow colours, and then often used as a decorative plant. 

 Varieties are known under the names of German greens, Buda kale, 

 Scotch kale or curlies. 



With regard to size, some have very tall stems, others stems of 

 medium length, and others dwarf. Differences are noticed by later 

 writers. Thus C. Bauhin,* describing one form of kale, says that it 

 has been seen " as high as trees " at Florence. Tournefort describes 

 a red colewort as being ' ' taller than the other species ; for it grows up 

 with a high stalk, two, three, or four foot, or even cubits, high, which 

 is thick and of a dark purple colour, rugged on the lower part, some- 



* Pinax, p. Ill (1617). 



