BRASSICACE^I. 131 



Group VI. — Crnciferales, 



Order 10.— BRASSICACEtE.— Lindley. 



Herbaceous, rarely shrubby plants, with alternate leaves, and small white, yellow, or 

 whitish-purple flowers. Sepals 4, deciduous. f Petals 4, hypogynous, alternate with the 

 sepals, cruciate, regular, nearly equal. Stamens 6, two of which are shorter, and usually 

 inserted rather lower than the others ; the other four in pairs. Anthers introrse. Torus 

 with 2 or more glands, between the stamens and the ovary. Ovary generally of 2 cells, 

 with a membranaceous (spurious) partition. Style short or none, with a two-lobed or 

 double stigma. Pericarp a silique or silicle, opening by the two valves separating from 

 the permanent placenta, usually 2-celled, many-seeded (rarely 1 -celled, and indehiscent.) 

 Seeds mostly pendulous, attached in single rows to each edge of the placenta, with no 

 albumen. Embryo with the cotyledons variously folded on the radicle. 



This is a very extended and, at the same time, very natural family of 

 plants, all the species composing it being closely allied in structure and pro- 

 perties. It is divided into two great sections, founded on the structure of the 

 fruit, the Siliquosce and the Siliculosce. It is equivalent to the 15th class of 

 the sexual system, or Tetradynamia, a striking instance of a perfectly natural 

 group in a purely artificial arrangement. It has been divided by botanists 

 into many tribes, founded on the number and character of the cotyledons, 

 which tribes are again subdivided, according to the structure of the pericarp. 



The Brassicacese are all more or less acrid and pungent. In some of 

 them, this acrid principle is in union with a considerable quantity of muci- 

 lage, when they become useful articles of food. The acridity in all of them 

 appears to depend on a volatile oil, which is dissipated by heat. A very 

 large number of culinary vegetables and condiments are derived from this 

 class, as all the varieties of Cabbage, the Turnip, Mustard, Horse Radish, 

 Cress, &c. 



As medicinal agents they are of little importance, though from the pun- 

 gency of the volatile oil contained in some of them, they are frequently em- 

 ployed as external stimulants, and sometimes administered internally to excite 

 the intestinal canal. They are, however, all useful as antiscorbutics. The 

 U. S. Pharmacopoeia recognises but two of them as officinal, the Horse Radish 

 and Mustard. 



Cochlearia. : — Linn. 



Silicle ovate, globose, or oblong ; valves ventricose. Seeds many, not bordered. Calyx 

 equal, spreading. Petals 2-parted. Stamens not toothed. Style short or none. Flowers 

 white. Leaves usually fleshy. 



C. armoracia, Linn. — Radical leaves, oblong, crenate; cauline leaves lanceolate, 

 dentate, or incised. Silicle ellipsoid. 



Linn. Sp. PI. 904 ; Eng. Bot. xxxiii. t. 2323 ; Woodville, Med. Bot. t. 

 150 ; Stephenson and Churchill, Med. Bot. ii. 114 ; Lindley, Med. Flor. 



Common Name. — Horse Radish. 



Foreign Names. — Grand Raifort, Moutarde des allemands, Fr. ; Meerettig, 

 Gr. ; Barba forte, Rafano, It. 



