CRUCIFERJE. 



187 



Brassica oleracea (cmrfo-rapd) 

 (Kohl-Rabi). 



te§feh4& 





glands. Two of these are carpellary, placed inside the little lateral 

 stamens, and are bowed, concave externally. The placentary pair, 

 usually narrow and elongated, more rarely depressed, are external to 

 and between the two large stamens of each pair. The fruit is elon- 

 gated and cylindroidal, somewhat com- 

 pressed perpendicular to the septum, 

 which is nearly as broad as the valves. 

 These bear one or three ill-marked longi- 

 tudinal ribs ; the lateral ones are often 

 flexuous. The ovary is surmounted by a 

 short or elongated style, ending in a trun- 

 cate stigmatiferous head, entire, depressed 

 in the centre, or more or less bilobate. 

 The seeds are spherical or oblong, in one 

 row on either side of the septum, with free 

 funic! es. The radicle of the large fleshy 

 embryo is folded across the middle of one 

 of the cotyledons. These are conduplicate, 

 or folded transversely, one outside and pa- 

 rallel to the other, and in the fold of the 



latter lies the embryo. The genus consists of herbs or rarely under- 

 shrubs, with often erect branching stems, glaucescent and glabrous, or 

 hairy. The flowers 1 form leafless, simple or more rarely branched 

 racemes. This genus is the most instructive for study of all in this 

 immense order ; first, on account of the diverse modes of evolution of 

 its vegetative organs, found again in the other genera ; next, because of 

 the way its various sections stand apart or shade off into one another ; 

 whence we learn the real value of the characters on which authors 

 have based their separations of the genera of this order. 



As regards their vegetative organs, the Cabbages present that 

 evolution in two stages which has been misnamed biennial, and which 

 were better termed dicarpic, or dicarpian. True, the forms of the 

 common Cabbages known as Green Cabbages, 2 or Cabbages without 



Fig. 224. 

 Young plant (jL). 



and size. This kind of anomaly, observed pretty 

 frequently in the commoner Crucifers, is deter- 

 mined by the prick of an insect, or the develop- 

 ment of Erysiphe or some other parasitic fungus. 



1 Yellow, more rarely whitish. 



3 B. oleracea L., Spec, 932. — B. pinnatifida 

 Desf., Fl. All., t. 65 (ex Spach, Suit, a Buffon, 

 vi. 359). — Napus oleracea Spejn'N. 



