ON THE GROWTH OP PLANTS. 37 



emphatically a water grass, is not without value as affording something like 

 evidence that this species is perhaps after all out of place, and this may- 

 point to the fact that our induced form is the right one ; at all events, it quite 

 determines the fact that the name Glyceria is inapplicable, as it is a decided 

 Poa in cultivation. 



Crop Plants. 



Pastinaca sativa, Parsnip. — Our ennobled examples of these were con- 

 sidered so perfect, that it was thought advisable to consign the whole of the 

 seed of 1859 to the Messrs. Sutton of Reading, as new varieties of any cul- 

 tivated crop plant is always desirable, and more especially when, as in the 

 present case, the new form has been directly derived, not from a variety, but 

 from the original wild stock. In reference to the continued success of this 

 experiment, Mr. Sutton reports in a letter of October 17th of this year as 

 follows : — 



" The Student Parsnip in our trial ground is the nicest shape of any, more 

 free from fibres, and as large as the ' hollow crown,' which is a good medium 

 size. The flavour seems to be very nice." 



This is the more important, as of late this useful garden esculent has much 

 fallen into disuse, its want of flavour being the assigned cause. 



We must not omit to remark, that one of the most malformed specimens 

 of parsnip, and also a highly digitated Swedish Turnip, were set aside for 

 seeding, with a view to sowing next spring in the same kind of plots, as there 

 seems reason to expect that such degenerate forms could only beget a 

 degenerate progeny : with a view then to ascertain how far this degeneracy, 

 or otherwise, may proceed, we first took careful portraits of the seeded roots, 

 the seed of which is now put by for experiment. 



Brassica oleracea. — Having gathered some seeds of this wild cabbage 

 from Llandudno, N. Wales, in August 1859, we sowed it in the summer of 

 the present year in our private garden, from whence we removed some plants 

 for a plot in our College garden. These, and our own examples, are already 

 highly curious, as showing the tendency to run into so many of the cabbage 

 varieties, e. g. long petioles ; the types known as " kale, greens," &c, both 

 with broad, more or less undivided leaves, and with a tendency to deep lobes 

 and divisions. Others with short petioles, offer the true cabbage type ; while 

 these even now show tendencies for the production of sorts, as flat heads, 

 sugar-loaf, green, red, and white varieties. These of course are what one 

 would expect, but still it is curious to mark its progress. 



In speaking of the Brassica family, we cannot help expressing our convic- 

 tion of the justice of including the genus Sinapis with Brassica ; for just as 

 our experiments incline us to the opinion that all our so-called species of 

 this genus are after all only derivatives, so we believe that the Charlock 

 i>i7iapis arvensis, L. is also an agrarian form of Brassica. Upon this, however, 

 we want the experiments of a lifetime ; still these would be replete with 

 interest, and more especially as we find cabbage, rape, turnips, radishes, 

 and mustard almost wholly attendant upon cultivation, and that not only 

 with us, but in every variation of climate. How wild the thickets of Sinapis 

 nigra, some 6 feet high, look on the banks of the Ohio! and yet we have the 

 authority of Beck in favour of its introduction from Europe ; and so we have 

 evidence of the crops in India being smothered with wild rapes, which our 

 experiments show are principally bulbless varieties of the turnip. 



Mangel Wurzel. — The inquiry connected with the growth of this crop 

 is one which may be considered of interest in a physiological as well as an 

 agricultural point of view, and hence we give its results in this place. 



