Botany of Cole Plants 



95 



and turnip-like, foliage arising from the tuber : leaves small 

 and thinnish, the blades 4 to 8 in. long, oval or round-oval 

 to oblong, the margins prominently toothed or notched, the 

 base more or less irregularly lobed or shaped, the petiole slen- 

 der and thin and often bearing a few detached small leaf- 

 lobes, the base expanded and clasping. — Probably an offshoot 

 of the composite species B, oleracea, but marked in its stem 

 and foliage characters; grown for the stem tuber (the ante- 

 Linnean name gongylodes means " roundish " ) . 



3. B. campestris, Linn. var. Napobrassica, DC. Syst. 

 Nat. ii, 589. 1821. {B. oleracea var. Napobrassica, Linn. Sp. 

 PI. 667. B. Napobrassica, Mill. Gard. Diet. ed. 8 no. 2. 1768. 

 B. Napus var. Napobrassica, Reichb, in Moessl. Handb. 

 Gewachsk. ed. 3, ii, 1220. 1833.) Rutabaga. Swedish Tuknip. 

 Plant in flower or fruit 2 to 3 ft. high, branched, erect but 

 sometimes falling with the weight of seed: root a fusiform 

 or oblong (rarely globular) tuber with a long neck: radical 

 Ivs. long-stalked, 12 to 24 in. long over all, the blade 

 oblong in outline, strongly pinnate-lobed, the terminal lobe 

 broad and obtuse, the others successively smaller downward 

 and semi-opposite or scattered, some of the smaller parts 

 entirely separate and remote on the petiole, the margins vari- 

 ously and irregularly dentate or notched, the mature leaves 

 mostly wholly glabrous but sometimes bearing scattered set^e 

 on the ribs, the small leaves immediately succeeding the seed- 

 leaves more or less sparsely hairy ; upper stem leaves becoming 

 oblong to lance-oblong, strongly sessile-auriculate, notched, den- 

 tate, or nearly entire : flowers light yellow, in elongating clus- 

 ters : pod about 2 in. long exclusive of the conical beak, which 

 is about % in. long. — Sometimes the white-fleshed and yellow- 

 fleshed rutabagas are separated, in which case the former may 

 take the name Subvar. communis, DC. and the latter Subvar. 

 Rutabaga, DC. ; the botanical origin of these races is not 

 cleared up. 



Brassica campestris itself is a weed in and near cultivated 

 areas, not producing an enlarged root. Rape is often con- 



