112 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



each respect ; the difference consisteth onely in that, this plant carieth 

 his flowers in a round tuft or umble. . . . It is not very common. " He 

 figures four kinds. The first is the P. mams, Eowncivall Pease, " The 

 flower of which is white and hath about the middle of it a purple spot. " 

 This appears to correspond with our field pea ; but Gerard calls P. mmus 

 " garden and field pease, " only adding, " The fielde pease is so very well 

 knowne to all, that it were a needlesse labour to spende time about the 

 description." Hence he means our garden pea. The third is the 

 " tufted " and the fourth, P. excorticutum, " Pease without skins in the 

 cods." He thus describes it: — " They differ not from the precedent, 

 saving that the cods heereof want that tough skinny membrane in the 

 same, which the hogs cannot eate by reason of the toughnesse ; whereas 

 the other may be eaten cods and all the rest, same as kidney beanes 

 are, which being so dressed, are exceeding delicate meate. " This 

 variety is still in cultivation and known as the " sugar-pea." It is 

 not known when the garden or the field pea was introduced into 

 England, but Turner figures it (156S), and Gerard adds a figure of the 

 now so-called " Mummy pea." 



Mr. W. B. Booth says : — "In Queen Elizabeth's time (about 1570), 

 we are told, they were occasionally brought from Holland and con- 

 sidered a * dainty dish for ladies.' For many years their culture does 

 not appear to have been much attended to, but after the restoration of 

 Charles 11. , in 1660, the taste for green peas became fashionable." 



Peas, like other leguminous plants, are highly nitrogenous. Prof. 

 Church gives albuminoids 22.4 per cent., starch 51.3 per cent., and 

 mineral matters 3 per cent. The nutrient ratio is 1 : 2.5; the nutrient 

 value, 79 



Ehubarb. 



The garden rhubarb is botanically Rhaeum Rhaponticii7n, L. It is 

 stated that it grows in Thrace and Scythia; Mr. W. B. Booth (in the 

 " Treasury of Botany ") adds by the river Volga (the ancient name of 

 which was Rha), and gives 1573 as the earliest date of its cultivation 

 in this country; and that in Queen Elizabeth's time " the leaves were 

 used as a pot-herb and considered superior to spinach or beet ; but it was 

 only at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the stalks were 

 used for tarts," etc. Mr. A. Forsyth suggested the use of the un- 

 opened flowering bud or inflorescence, within its bracts to be cooked as 

 the stalks are. They possess a milder flavour and form a delicate 

 dish.'*'' With regard to the edible leaf -stalks Professor Church ob- 

 serves, " The chief nutrient in rhubarb is the sugar (glucose), which 

 amounts to 2 per cent, of the fresh stalks. Its sour taste is due to 

 oxalic acid, or rather to the acid oxalate of potash ; oxalate of lime is 

 also present. The following are the principal features: Water 95.1 

 per cent., albuminoids 0.9 per cent., sugar 2.1 per cent., oxalic acid 

 0.3 per cent. He adds: " As 1 lb. of rhubarb contains less than 1 oz. 

 of solid matter, of which ^ only is nutritive, it is obvious that the 

 food value is very small." 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, 1846, p. 5. 



