ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF OUR GARDEN VEGETABLES. 



355 



The conclusion to be drawn from the above doubtful notices is 

 that Siser and Sisarum were Eoman names for some variety of 

 parsnip, and that the true skirret was unknown before the sixteenth 

 century. 



To come to more modern days, Tournefort, in his " Gompleat 

 Herbal " (1719), figures the skirret with numerous spindle-shaped 

 roots, and says he knows but one species, Sisarum Germanorum, which 

 Oaesalpinius had regarded as synonymous with Elaphohoscum (fifteenth 

 century). But as it has " white umbels of sweet-smelling flowers," 

 it could not be the parsnip. 



Linnaeus, in 1754, is the first to cast doubts upon the origin of the 

 skirret. He includes it under the genus Slum, one species of which, 

 S. latifolium, is our British water parsnip, resembling the parsnip in 

 foHage, but it is not edible, being slightly poisonous. Linnaeus, how- 

 ever, adopted the old Latin name Sisarum as specific, but adds, 

 " Habitat in China. " 



Alphonse de Oandolle, in his " Origin of Cultivated Plants," dis- 

 cusses the question of the origin of the skirret, but thinks it doubtful 

 as a native of China, observing that Maximowicz recognizes only the 

 Altaic region of Siberia and North of Persia as the home of the wild 

 Siu7n Sisarum, L. He observes : " It came, perhaps, from Siberia into 

 Russia, and thence into Germany. . . I cannot find any Eussian name, 

 but the Germans have original names, Krizel or Grizel, Gorlein or 

 Gierlein, which indicate an ancient cultivation, more than the ordinary 

 name Zuckerwurzel or sugar-root. The Danish name has the same 

 meaning — sokerot, whence the English Skirret." 



MM. A. Paillieux and D. Bois in " Le Potager d'un Curieux : 

 Histoire, Culture et Usages," observe that Jacques and H^rincq give 

 the date 1548 for the introduction of the chervis or skirret into Europe. 

 If so, then the date of Dodoens' figure 1559 and the several countries in 

 which he says it was then cultivated (unless it be confounded with 

 the parsnip) would seem to indicate too short a time for its diffusion. 

 The mystery of its origin and introduction, therefore, still remains 

 unsolved. 



The Turnip and the Eape. 



These two plants are only different forms or varieties of the same 

 species known as Brassica cam^pestris, L. (fig. 125) — B. Napus, L. (?), 

 being the Eape; B. Rutabaga, L., the Swede; B. Rapa, L., the globular 

 Turnip and the spindle-shaped Navew. Another variety is called 

 oleifera, the seeds of which supply rape and colza oils. 



Both kinds were well known to the ancients. The Greeks had two 

 words Gongule, which was the turnip, for the word means " round," 

 and Aristophanes speaks of Gongule memagmene, which may be trans- 

 lated "mashed turnips." Theophrastus and Dioscorides have the 

 name Bounias, which was recognized in the sixteenth century as the 

 rape and called Napus sativus ; but someone has written in MS. of that 

 century, The little Navew." 



