PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 37 



Touching the question of origin, ■we need not occupy 

 ourselves with the botanical limits of the species, and 

 with the classification of the races, varieties, and sub- 

 varieties,''- since all the Brassicce are of European and 

 Siberian origin, and are still to be seen in these regions 

 wild, or half wild, in some form or other. 



Plants so commonly cultivated and whose germina- 

 tion is so easy often spread round cultivated places ; 

 hence some uncertainty regarding the really wild nature 

 of the plants found in the open country. Nevertheless, 

 Linnaeus mentions that Brassicn napus grows in the sand 

 on the sea-coast in Sweden (Gothland), Holland, and Eng- 

 land, which is confirmed, as far as Sweden is concerned, 

 by Fries,^ who, with his usual attention to questions of 

 this nature, mentions Br. Campestris, L. (type of the 

 Jtapa with slender roots), as really wild in the whole 

 Scandinavian peninsula, in Finland and Denmark. 

 Ledebour ^ indicates it in the whole of Russia, Siberia, 

 and the Caspian Sea. 



The floras of temperate and southern Asia mention 

 rapes and turnips as cultivated plants, never as escaped 

 from cultivation.* This is already an indication of foreign 

 origin. The evidence of philology is no less significant. 



There is no Sanskrit name for these plants, but only 

 modern Hindu and Bengalee names, and those only for 

 Brassica rapa and B. oleracea.^ Ksempfer" gives Japanese 

 names for the turnip — busei, or more commonly aona — 

 but there is nothing to show that these names are ancient. 

 Bretschneider, who has made a careful study of Chinese 

 authors, mentions no Brassica. Apparently they do not 

 occur in any of the ancient works on botany and agricul- 

 ture,although several varieties are noweultivated in China. 



It is just the reverse in Europe. The old languages 



' This classification has been the snbjeot of a paper by Augustin 

 Pyramua de Candolle, Transactions of the JSorticuUwal Society, vol. v. 



^ Fries, Summa Veget. Scand., i. p. 29. 



' Ledebour, Fl. Boss., i. p. 216. 



* Boissier, ^oro Orientalis ; Sir J. Hooker, Mora of British, India; 

 Thnnberg, Flora Japonica; Franchet and Savatier, EnAimeratio Plomr 

 iarum Japomca/rwm. 



' Piddington, Index, " Ksempfer, Amcen., p. 822. 



