GARDEN BOTANY. 



ORDER CliUCIFERJE. MCSTARD FAMILY. 



Manual, p. 28. Well known by the pungent taste, flowers of 4 sepals, 4 

 petals with claws, 6 tctradynamous stamens, and the kind of pod called a silique 

 or silicic. The following is a simple key to the cultivated species. 



Flowers deep orange or brownish yellow, sweet-scented. . . 1. CHEIRANTHUS. 

 Flowers pure yellow. 



Pod long or longish, beak-pointed, several-seeded : seeds spherical. 



Mostly biennials : sepals erect : upper leaves sessile or clasping. 2. BRASSICA. 



Annuals : sepals loose or spreading : leaves cut. Man. p. 36. SINAPIS. 



Pod slender, not beaked, several seeded : seeds flat. Man. p. 35- BARBAREA. 



Pod flat, wing-like, 1-celJed, 1-seeded, hanging, not opening. . 3. ISATIS. 



Pod very short, 2-celled. few-seeded : low plants. ... 10. ALYSSUM. 



Flowers pale yellow, turning white or purple : pod jointed. . . 4. RAPHANUS. 

 Flowers not yellow, white, pink, or purple. 



Seeds spherical , several in a beak-pointed thick and indehiscent pod. 4. RAPHANUS. 

 Seeds several or many in a long and narrow pod. 



Leaves green, toothed : flowers fragrant chiefly at night. . . 6. HESPERIS. 



Leaves hoary, entire : flowers fragrant in the day. ... 6. MATTHIOLA. 



Seeds many or few in a shortish pod : flowers white. Man. p. 30 NASTURTIUM. 

 Seeds several in a broad and flat pod, having a broad and silvery 



partition : flowers purple, large i ", 7. LUNARIA. 



Seeds one or sometimes two in each cell of a short pod. 



Corolla irregular : 2 exterior petals larger than the other two. 8. IBERIS. 

 Corolla regular, as in all the rest of the order, white, small. 



Leaves cut or toothed : partition of the pod very narrow. . 9. LEPIDIUM. 

 Leaves narrow, entire : partition oval. . .10. ALYSSUM. 



1. Cheiranthus Cheiri, WALLFLOWER. Perennial, with narrow and 

 entire pointed leaves ; cultivated everywhere for its deliciously fragrant orange 

 or red-yellow flowers. 



2. Brassica. So much like Sinapis botanically, that the two should form, 

 only one genus. Cult, as biennials for food. 



B. oleracea, CABBAGE, with roundish, thickish, strongly-veined, gla- 

 brous and glaucous fleshy leaves, in cultivation forming a head the first year. 



Var. BROCCOLI has fleshy irregular branches bearing clusters of abortive 

 flower-buds, instead of a head. 



Var. CAULIFLOWER has a depressed head, formed of short and fleshy flower- 

 branches changed into a dense fleshy mass. 



Var. KOHLRABI has the main stem thickened below into a sort of turnip 

 above-ground. 



Var. KALE is more nearly the natural wild state, leaves not forming a head. 



B. campestris, with lower leaves rough-hairy and pinnatifid, upper ones 

 clasping by an auricled base, and flowers brighter yellow, is the original of the 



Var. TURNIP, with depressed fleshy (napiform) white root, and (probably) 



Var. RUTABAGA or SWEDISH TURNIP, with a longer yellowish root. 



Var. COLZA, or RAPE- SEED, is near the wild state, with the small root 

 annual ; cult, for the oil of the seeds. 



3. Isatis tinctoria, DYER'S WOAD. Tall biennial, with branching racemes 

 of small yellow flowers, succeeded by hanging 1-seeded pods, not opening, 

 winged, like a small samara : formerly cultivated for a blue dye 



