Chap. IX. CULINARY PLANTS : CABBAGES. 341 



form was lost. In the sixth generation this maize perfectly 

 resembled a European variety, described as the second sub-variety 

 of the fifth race. When Metzger published his book, this variety 

 was still cultivated near Heidelberg, and could be distinguished 

 from the common kind only by a somewhat more vigorous growth. 

 Analogous results were obtained by the cultivation of another 

 American race, the "white-tooth corn/ 5 in which the tooth nearly 

 disappeared even in the second generation. A third race, the 

 " chicken corn," did not undergo so great a change, but the seeds 

 became less polished and pellucid. In the above cases the seeds 

 were carried from a warm to a colder climate. But Fritz Miiller 

 informs me that a dwarf variety with small rounded seeds (papa- 

 gaien-mais), introduced from Germany into S. Brazil, produces 

 plants as tall, with seeds as flat, as those of the kind commonly 

 cultivated there. 



These facts afford the most remarkable instance known to 

 me of the direct and prompt action of climate on a plant. 

 It might have been expected that the tallness of the stem, 

 the period of vegetation, and the ripening of the seed, would 

 have been thus affected ; but it is a much more surprising 

 fact that the seeds should have undergone so rapid and great 

 a change. As, however, flowers, with their product the seed, 

 are formed by the metamorphosis of the stem and leaves, any 

 modification in these latter organs would be apt to extend, 

 through correlation, to the organs of fructification. 



Collage (Brassica oleracea). — Every one knows how greatly the 

 various kinds of cabbage differ in appearance. In the Island of 

 Jersey, from the effects of particular culture and of climate, a stalk 

 has grown to the height of sixteen feet, and " had its spring shoots 

 at the top occupied by a magpie's nest : " the woody stems are not 

 unfrequently from ten to twelve feet in height, and are there used 

 as rafters 64 and as walking-sticks. We are thus reminded that in 

 certain countries plants belonging to the generally herbaceous 

 order of the Cruciferae are developed into trees. Every one can 

 appreciate the difference between green or red cabbages with 

 great single heads; Brussel-sprouts with numerous little heads; 

 broccolis and cauliflowers with the greater number of their flowers 

 in an aborted condition, incapable of producing seed, and borne in 

 a dense corymb instead of an open panicle ; savoys with their 

 blistered and wrinkled leaves; and borecoles and kails, which 

 come nearest to the wild parent-form. There are also various 



64 ' Cabbage Timber, ' Gardener's walking-stick made from a cabbage- 

 Chron.,' 1856, p, 744, quoted from stalk is exhibited in the Museum at 

 Hooker's 'Journal of Botany.' A Kew. 



