CRUCIFER. 119 
SPECIES I-CRAMBE MARITIMA. Linn. 
Puate LXXxX.* 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. 11. Zetr. Tab. IT. Fig. 4164. 
Root leaves stalked, roundish-oval, sinuated and waved at the 
edges. Plant glabrous and very glaucous. 
On sandy and shingly sea-beaches. Thinly scattered round the 
coast of England, the west coast of Scotland as far north as Islay ; 
very scarce on the east coast of Scotland, where it does not extend 
beyond the southern shore of the Frith of Forth. 
England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer. 
Rootstock deeply buried in the sand or shingle, thick and fleshy, 
branched, producing subterranean shoots and numerous branched 
spreading stems about 2 feet high. Leaves broadly oval, coarsely 
toothed and sinuated, resembling those of a cabbage but much 
more glaucous and waved at the edges; the lowest leaves on long 
stalks, and very large; the upper leaves much smaller, and on 
shorter stalks. Flowers about + inch across, white, on slender 
pedicels fully twice the length of the calyx; corymbs terminating 
the branches, which are so arranged as to form a compound corymb. 
Fruit in lax racemes combined into a panicle. Fruit pedicels 
ascending. Lower joint of the pod about § inch long, and a little 
thicker than the pedicel. Upper joint nearly } inch long by 
2 inch broad, roundish oval, slightly pointed at the apex. Whole 
plant fleshy, glabrous, intensely glaucous. 
Sea-Kale. 
French, Crambé Maritime. German, Der Gemeine Meerkohl. 
The specific name indicates the habitat of this plant. Its native haunts are by the 
sea-coast; but it is cultivated largely inland, and in almost every garden in England. 
It is somewhat uncertain as to whom the merit is due of the first attempt to introduce 
this plant into cultivated gardens with a view to its use as an esculent vegetable. 
Bryant and Parkinson state that from a very early time it was cut and eaten by the 
inhabitants of the coasts where it grows wild. Sir William Jones, of Chelsea, asserts 
that he saw bundles of it exposed for sale in the market at Chichester in 1753; and 
Maher observes, in the Horticultural Transactions, that “the Crambe maritima was 
known and sent from this kingdom to the Continent more than two hundred years 
ago.” About the year 1767 Dr. Lettsom cultivated Sea-Kale in his own garden at 
Grove Hill, and through him it was brought into general use. At the present time 
it is a common vegetable on the stalls of Covent Garden Market, and is occasionally 
seen in Scotland. In France it is seldom eaten. In 1807, Bastieu describes the “ Chou 
marin d’Angleterre,” but he appears to have made his experiments on the green leaves 
* The Plate is E. B. 924, with fruit added by Mr. J. E. Sowerby. 
