40 ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF OUR GARDEN VEGETABLES. 



later production. He figures them as having round leaves, but very 

 " open," thus describing them: 



Fig. 11, B. sabauda, " Sauoie Cole. The leaues are greet and 

 large, werie like to those of the great Cabbage, which turne them- 

 selues vpwardes as though they woulde embrace one another to make 

 a loued Cabbage; but when they come to the shutting vp they stande 

 at a staie, and rather shewe themselues wider open than shut any 

 neerer togither; in other respects it is like vnto a Cabbage." In this 

 respect, therefore, it resembles an intermediate stage between kales 

 and the hearting or headed cabbages of to-day. 



Messrs. Button have developed a bullated form of Kale, called the 

 "Palm-leaved Kale," which might represent the preliminary stage 

 towards the Savoy Cabbage, the leaves spreading, like those of a palm 

 tree, and not incurved. 



No. 12 is B. S. crispa, " Curled Sauoie Cole," which only differs in 

 having a slightly curled margin. (Fig. 18.) 



The present-day description of the Savoy as given in the ' ' Treasury 

 of Botany " is that it is " chiefly distinguished by its leaves being 

 wrinkled in Such a manner as to have a netted appearance. When 

 fully headed it forms an .excellent hardy winter vegetable. ' ' Hence the 

 Savoy differs now from Gerard's in having a central heart, a 

 " bullated " surface, and often a crisped margin. 



The varieties of true " hearting " cabbages are now innumerable, 

 and it would be useless to enumerate them. Some are suitable for 

 cattle and more for domestic purposes. Messrs. Carter alone have 

 nearly forty varieties of red, white, and Savoy cabbages. 



When globular buds are produced they can be borne on the stem 

 in the axils of the leaves or leaf -scars, and only a rosette of leaves on 

 the top, giving us the ordinary Brussels sprouts. The top may be 

 replaced by many buds, as occurred in 1787, or both may be combined, 

 a true cabbage being borne with sprouts below. This is Messrs. Carter's 

 new Cabbage-sprout, the result of a hybrid between W inning stadt 

 Cabbage and Cambridge Champion Brussels Sprout.* 



The curious proliferous form mentioned above was described in 

 1787.1 It is called B. capita polycephalos. (Fig. 19.) In size it 

 resembled ordinary cabbages, but differed in bearing several heads 

 (sometimes fifty, the size of eggs, according to Tournefort), some larger, 

 some smaller. It was thought to have resulted from extra nourishment. 

 It is said to be an unaccustomed and rare form. There is no evidence 

 of its having had any descendants, and Mr. A. Sutton writes that at 

 the present day ' * there is no variety or strain of cabbage which produces 

 an abundance of small cabbage heads ; but we have often seen plants 

 somewhat like your description [of the polycephalos], where the first 

 head of a plant in a young stage has been injured, either by the hoe or 

 by insects." 



Brussels sprouts are so called from the fact that they originated in 



* Catalogue, 1907, p. 21 (figure and description). 



t Historia generalis plantamm, p. 521. Attributed to Dalechamps. 



