THE HISTORY OF THE CABBAGE TRIBE. 



15 



THE HISTORY OF THE CABBAGE TRIBE. 

 By the Rev. Professor G. Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., V.M.H. 



[Lecture delivered March 31, 1908.] 



Brassica * oleracea, L. (Cruciferae), is a native of the coasts of England 

 and Wales, the Channel Islands, and W. and S. Europe. It has no 

 wild varieties, but innumerable sorts have arisen under cultivation. It 

 supplies a nutritious diet from the roots, stems, and branches, as well as 

 from the leaf-buds, leaves, and unexpanded inflorescences. 



The origin of the name " cabbage " is as follows: In the sixteenth 

 century the French name of the plant was choulx, "as if we wished to 

 speak of the stems, Latin, caules, by which also Brassica is called by 

 Cato, since scarcely any herb grows larger in the stem. The * choulz 

 cabuz' are the most delicate for eating." t This appears to have been 

 the popular French name for the Grambe capitata or " Cabbage cole " of 

 Gerard. In modern French the first word is retained, so that chou alone 

 signifies the cabbage ; while in English this is dropped, and we have 

 turned the second into cabbage (formerly spelt "cabbidge"). Cabuz 

 is derived from capus, which meant in French " round-headed," being 

 itself derived from the Italian capuccio, a "little head," a diminutive 

 of capo, Latin caput. 



Boot. — The only instance of the roots being cultivated was a variety 

 called Napo -brassica, first mentioned by C. Bauhin (" Biriax," 1671), and 

 described as being like a carrot or turnip and cultivated in the colder 

 parts of Bavaria, and especially on the mountains near Bohemia. It Was' 

 called "Dorsen " or " Dorschen." 



Tournefort described this, but only in the words of Bauhin, and makes 

 no mention of its being grown in his day (1730). 



Stem. — There are two forms of the stem in use ; the most important 

 is the Kohl-rabi (var. Gaulorapa), remarkable for its globular form. It 

 is not clear whether it was known to the ancients, but Pliny's description 

 of the " Corinthian " turnip seems to agree with it. He says : " The root 

 is all but out of the ground ; indeed, this is the only kind that in growing 

 shoots upwards, and not, as all the others do, downwards into the 

 ground." 



It appears to have been introduced into Germany from Italy about 

 1558, and into Tripoli about 1574. Dodoens, who figures five kinds 

 of Brassica, omits it (1559) ; so also does Lobel (1576) ; but Dodoens, in 

 his "History of Plants" (second edition, date?), says of No. 4: "It 



* With regard to the derivation of the word Brassica, Hermann Boerhaave (1727) 

 says it is from airb rod fipd£eiu, Lat. vorare [" to devour "], quia haec planta locum tenet 

 inter herbas edules, i.e., " because it holds a place among edible plants." But there 

 is no such Greek verb. There is fipdaorciv, or fipd&iv, " to boil," and fitfipwo-Kctv, " to 

 eat," as well as the word apaf}p6l-eie, from an obsolete verb, avafip6x<», " to swallow" 

 or " gulp down." 



t De Re Hartensi Libellus, by Carolus Stephanus, 1545. 



