RADIX ARMORACLE. 71 



RADIX ARMORACIiE. 



I 



Horse-^radish ; F. Raifort (i.e. rcvcine foi-te), Cran deBretagne; 

 G. Meerrettig. 



Botanical Origin — Cochleana Aiinioracia \j.,b. common perennial 

 with a stout tapering root, large coarse oblong leaves with long stalks, 

 and erect flowering racemes 2 to 3 feet high. It is indigenous to the 

 eastern parts of Europe, from the Caspian through Russia and Poland 

 to Finland. In Britain and in other parts of Europe from Sicily to the 

 polar circle, it occurs cultivated or semi-wild; in the opinion of Schli- 

 beler^ it is not truly indigenous to Norway. 



History — The vernacular name Ai'Tnon is stated by Pliny' to be 

 used in the Pontic regions to designate the AiTtuyt'Ocia of the Romans, 

 the Wild Radish (pa<pavh aypia) of the Greeks, a plant which cannot 

 be positively identified with that under notice. 



Horse-radish is called in the Russian language Chren, in Lithuanian 

 Krenai, in lUyi-ian Kren, a name which has passed into several German 

 dialects, and as Cran or Cranson into French. 



From these and similar facts, De CandoUe^ has di-awn the con- 

 clusion that the propagation of the plant has travelled from Eastern to 

 Western Europe. 



Both the root and leaves of horse-radish were used as a medicine 

 and also eaten with food in Germany and Denmark during the middle 

 ages.* But the use of the former was not common in England until a 

 much later period. The plant is mentioned in the Meddygon Myddfai 

 and was known in England as Red-cole in the time of Turner, 1-568, 

 but is not quoted by him* as used in food, nor is it noticed by Boorde,* 

 1542, in his chapter on edible roots. Gerarde'^ at the end of the 16th 

 centur}' remarks that horse-radish — " is commonly used among the 

 Germans for sauce to eat fish with, and such like meats, as we do 

 mustard." Half a century later the taste for horse-radish had begun to 

 prevail in England. Coles ^ (1657) states that the root sliced thin and 

 mixed wdth vinegar is eaten as a sauce with meat as among the 

 Germans. That the use of horse-radish in France had the same origin 

 is proved by its old French name Jloutarde des Allemands. 



The root to which certain medicinal properties had always been 

 assigned, was included in the materia medica of the London Pharma- 

 copoeias of the last century under the name of Raphanus rusticanus. 



Description — The root which in good ground often attains a length 

 of 3 feet and nearly an inch in diameter, is enlarged in its upper part 

 into a crown, usually dividing into a few short branches each sur- 

 mounted by a tuft of leaves, and annulated by the scars of fallen 

 foliage ; below the crown it tapers slightly, and then for some distance is 



1 Pflanzenwelt Norwegens (1873) 296. » ffertall, part 2. (1568) 111. 



2 Lib. xix. c. 26 (Littr^'s translation). * Dyetary of Hdth, Early English Text 

 ' Geographic Botaniqtie, ii. (1855) 655. Society, 1870. 278. 



* Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, iii. ' HerbaM, edited by Johnson, 1636, 240. 



(1856) 531 ; also Schubeler l.c. ; Pfeiffer, ^Adam in Eden, or Nature's Paradise, 



Buck der Xatur von Konrad von Megenberg, Lond. 1657. chap. 256. 

 Stuttgart, 1861. 418. 



