16 



On the Cultivation of Sea Kale. 



and indented, containing a bud, or rudiment of the next 

 year's stem at the bottom of the leaf-stalk, dying away in 

 the autumn * Stems several, from one foot and a half to 

 two feet high, erect, branching alternately, and terminating 

 in large panicles of spiked flowers, which smell somewhat 

 like honey. Peduncles, as the fruit swells, considerably 

 elongated. Calyx often tinged with purple, its leaflets nearly 

 equal. Petals cream coloured, with purple claws, larger than 

 in many genera of this natural order. Filaments purple. 

 Anthers pale yellow. Glands of the receptacle between the 

 longer filaments yellowish green. Stigma pale yellow. Pouch, 

 as the accurate Mr. Woodward describes it in With be- 

 ing's work, at first egg-shaped, afterwards nearly globular, 

 fleshy, falling off when ripe, about August, with the seed in it, 

 which is large, and of a pale brown colour. 



The Crambe Maritima was known and sent from this 

 kingdom to the continent more than two hundred years 

 ago, by L'Obel, and Turner ;-J- but our immortal coun- 

 tryman, Philip Miller, has the honour of being the first 



* Parkinson perhaps never committed a more egregious blunder, than in the 

 account he has given of this part of the plant's economy : " The root is some- 

 wltat great, keeping the green leaves all the winter." Bryant, in his Fl. Diat. 

 misled, perhaps, by this account, says, « The radical leaves being green all the 

 winter," are cut by the inhabitants where the plant grows, and boiled as cabbage. 

 Curt. 



f It would be difficult to ascertain the precise period of its being first used 

 with us as a culinary plant ; on many parts of the coast, the inhabitants for time 

 immemorial have been in the practice of seeking for the plant in the spring, where 

 it grows spontaneously ; and, removing the sand or pebbles, they cut off the 

 young shoots as yet blanched, close to the roots. Mr. William Jones, of Chelsea, 

 saw bundles of it in a cultivated state, exposed for sale in Chichester market, in 

 the year 1753. Curt. 



