By M. De Candolle. 



21 



an advanced period of their growth, like the Brassica oleracea, 

 and hairy leaves in the young plants, like the Brassica Rapa ; 

 they may be considered in this respect as intermediate be- 

 tween the former and the latter. The Brassica campestris is 

 indigenous to Europe, and spoken of by Botanists as growing 

 spontaneously in fields in England* and Scotland, in Goth- 

 land, in the southern part of Lapland, in Spain near Madrid, 

 in Transylvania, and in the Crimea ; but we must observe, 

 that where wild plants are found growing in the vicinity of 

 the very grounds in which the same plant is cultivated, there 

 always remains some doubt as to the origin of the wild one, 

 it being natural to suppose that it proceeded from the culti- 

 vated plant in its neighbourhood, and more particularly as 

 they scarcely ever differ from each other. 



First Race. Brassica campestris oleifera. 



Chou oleifere. Colsat or Cols a, sometimes written Colza. 



The plant which I here designate as being the Field Cab- 

 bage in its natural state, or very little altered by cultivation, 

 has a slender root, an upright, smooth, and branching stem, 

 about a foot and a half or two feet high, which, together with 

 the foliage, is covered with glaucous bloom, the interior part 

 of the leaves of the young plants, as well as their edges and 

 nerves, are covered with bristles ; when older, all the leaves 

 are smooth, the lower ones are petiolated and shaped in the 

 form of a lyre : that is, their inferior lobes are separated as 

 far as the mid-rib and the superior ones united ; the stem 

 leaves are bent inwards, embracing the stalk ; they are scol- 



* Smith, Flora Britannica, Vol. ii. page 718. English Botany, plate 2«34. 



