
1891.] The History of Garden Vegetables. 803 
in Indian gardens, goot-begoon, oou lacetee buengun ; in Mexico, 
jomatl ; in Japan, akanasu, red egg-plant.!® 
TURNIP. Brassica sp. 
Vilmorin in his “ Les Plantes Potageres,” 1883, classes all the 
turnips under Brassica napus L.; but the older authors referred 
them, more correctly as we think, to Brassica napus and B. rapa. 
Decandolle,” who makes this distinction, separates the first into 
three groups, based on color, the white, yellow, and black; the 
second into groups, comprising the white, yellow, black, red, and 
green. In the thirteenth century Albertus Magnus describes the 
napus as with a long root, which is eaten, and the rapa as having 
a spherical compressed bulb, and sometimes red in the stalk. The 
turnip is of ancient culture. Columella,” a. D. 42, says the napus 
and the vapa are both grown, and the latter the larger and greener 
for the use of man and beasts, especially in France; the former 
not having a swollen, but a slender, root. He also speaks of the 
Mursian gongylis, which may be the round turnip, as being espe- 
cially fine. The distinction between the napus and the rapa was 
not always held, as Pliny ™® uses the word napus generically, and 
says that there are five kinds, the Corinthean, Cleonzum, Liotha- - 
sium, Boeoticum, and the Green. The Corinthean, the largest, 
with an almost bare root, grows on the surface, and not, as 
do the rest, under the soil. The Liothasium, also called Thra- 
cium, is the hardiest. The Bceoticum is sweet, of a notable round- 
ness, and not very long as is the Cleoneum. At Rome the 
Amiternian is in most esteem, next the Nursinian, and third our 
own kind (the green?). In another place, under rapa he mentions 
two kinds, the one broad-bottomed (flat?), the other globular, 
and the most esteemed those of Nursia. The zapus of Amiterni- 
num, of a nature quite similar to the rapa, succeeds best in a cool 
place. He mentions that the rapa sometimes attain a weight of 
l4 Speede. Ind. Handb. of Gard., 
15 Heller. U.S, Pat. Of. Rept., — 411. 
16 K, Tamari 
17 Decandolle. Mem., 1 =. 30. 
18 Columella. Lib., II. etc.; X., 
19 Pliny. Lib., XIX., é aa ‘Lib. AVIU. X ws 35. 

