BRASSICA 



BRASSICA 



543 



BB. Li's. (except upon the fl.-st.) thin and green: fls. 



snuillcr and bright yellow, less prominently clawed. 

 c. Plant potaitialhj biennial (that is, the root hard and 



thickvnul, often distinctly tuberous): foliage firm 



in texture. 



D. Foliage distinctly hairy. 

 4. Rapa, Linn. Common Turnip. Lvs. prominently 

 lyrate or interrupted below, the root tuberous. — What- 

 ever the origin of the rutabaga, and turnip may be, the 

 two plants show good botanical characters. The tubers 

 of the two are different in season, texture and flavor. 

 In the rutabaga, the small lvs. immediately following 

 the seed-lvs. are sparsely hairy, but all subsequent 

 lvs. are entirely smooth, densely glaucous blue, thick 

 and cabbage-like, with a fleshy petiole and midrib. In 

 the turnip, the radical lvs. are always more or less 

 hairy, and they are green and radish-like, thin, with 

 slender petiole, and the lvs. are much more lyrate, 

 with interrupted Ifts. on the petiole; the small lvs. 

 following the seed-lvs. are also thinner and narrower 

 and more deeply scalloped. In the rutabaga, the fls. 

 are large and creamy-yellow, whereas in the turnip 



Lower stem leaf of Brassica 

 napiformis. 



631. Tuberous root of pak-choi. — Brassica chinensis. 



they are small, yeUow and mustard-like, with shorter 

 claws and more spreading caly.x. The turnips vary in 

 hairiness, but the cone of expanding lvs., or the "heart- 

 Ivs.," always shows the hairs distinctlj-, while the 

 heart-lvs. of the rutabagas are normally entirely gla- 

 brous, fleshy, and remind one of the young shoots of 

 sea-kale. The turnip usually produces seed freely if 

 the bottoms are left in the ground over winter; and 

 thereby the plant spreads, becoming a true annual a,nd 

 a bad weed, with a slender hard root. Oil-producing 

 forms are var. oleifera, DC. 



DD. Foliage not hairy. 



5. chinensis, Linn. Pak-choi Cabbage. Fig. 630. 

 Radical lvs. broad and ample, glossy green, obovate or 

 round-obovate in general outline, either entire or 

 obscurely wavy or even crenate, tapering to a distinct 

 and thick strong petiole, which is usually not promi- 

 nently margined: pod large and tapering into a beak 

 half an inch long: root sometimes tuberous (Fig. 631). 

 — This plant is grown by the American Chinese, and is 

 occasionally seen in other gardens (see Bailey, Bull. No. 

 67, Cornell Exp. Sta.). It is impossible to determine 

 whether this particular plant is the one that Linnajus 

 meant to distinguish by his Brassica chinen.fis, but it 

 best answers the description in his Amcenitates (Vol. 

 IV). In Linnsus' herbarium is a Bra.ssica marked 

 "chinensLs" in his own handwriting, but it shows purple 

 fls. and has IjTate-lobed lvs., whereas Linnjpus described 

 his plant as having yellow fls. and cynoglossum-like 

 lvs.; probably not the original. 



6. napiformis, Bailey (Sinapis juncea var. nafn- 

 f/irmis. Piiill. c(- Bois). TrBERors-ROOTED Chinese 



Mustard. Fig. 632. Radical lvs. comparatively few, 

 the blade thin and oval in outline, and on long and 

 slender, slightly feathered petioles, sharply and irregu- 

 larly toothed, with a thin bloom: beak of the pod more 

 abrupt: root distinctly 

 hard and tuberous. 

 China. — This vege- 

 table appeared in 

 France in 1882 from 

 seeds sent by Bre- 

 tschneider, of the Rus- 

 sian legation, Pekin. It 

 was ottered by Ameri- 

 can seedsmen as early 

 as 1889. The plant is 

 a biennial, with thin 

 bluish foliage, and a small tuberous root hke a conical 

 turnip. These roots reach a diam. of 3 or 4 in., and are 

 scarcely distinguishable from white turnips in appear- 

 ance, texture and flavor. In China the tubers are used 

 as a winter vegetable, the seeds being sown in summer. 

 The plant does not appear to have been brought to 

 the attention of botanists until Bretschneider published 

 an account of it in a French jour- 

 nal in 1881. Paillieux and Bois 

 (Le Potager d'un Curieux) regard 

 it as a variet}' of Brassica juncea, 

 to which the Chinese mustard 

 belongs, but it is very difTerent 

 from that plant. It is nearly 

 related to pak-choi, and it may 

 have sprung from the same spe- 

 cies; but it is clearly distinguished 

 by its sharply toothed lvs., one of 

 which is shown in Fig. 632. 



cc. Plant truly annual: foliage 

 profuse, loose and soft. 



7. Pe - tsai, Bailey. Pe - tsai 



Cabbage. Fig. 633. Numerous 



radical lvs., large and light green, 



oblong or ovate-oblong, crinkled 



and very veiny, and the margins 



wavy, contracted into a flat and ribbed petiole 1-3 in. 



wide, which is provided with a wide thin notched or 



wavy wing; st.-lvs. sessile and clasping: pod of medium 



size, with a short cone-like beak. — The pe-tsai, or 



Chinese cabbage, is no longer a novelty in American 



gardens, although it does not appear to be well known, 



and its merits are not understood. Its cult, and peculi- 



/^"Ji^^ 



633. Brassica Pe-tsai. 



arities were described in France as long ago as 1840, by 

 Pepin, who says that, while the plant had been known 

 in botanic gardens for 20 years, it was brouglit to 

 notice as a culinary vegetable only 3 years before he 

 WTote. It appears to have attracted little attention in 

 Eu. until late in the last century, however. It began to 

 attract attention in the U. S. probably about 25 years 



