BRITISH WILD FLOWERS. 
55 
XI.—THE RADISH TRIBE. 
Seed-pod a silicle or a silique, separating transversely into cells or joints. Seeds globose. 
GENUS XXIX. 
THE SEA-KALE. (Crambe, Lin .) 
Lin. Syst. TETRADYNAMIA SILICULOSA. 
Generic Character. —Silicula with two joints, the lower abortive, the upper globose, one-seeded. Cotyledons thick, somewhat foliaceous, 
deeply emarginate. Flowers white. ( Dec .) 
Description, &c. —There are several species of this genus, some of which are under-shrubs, but only one is a 
native of Britain. The name of Crambe is from a Greek word signifying a sea-cabbage. 
I.—THE COMMON SEA-KALE. (Crambe maritima, Lin.') 
Engravings. —Eng. Bot., t. 924 ; 2d ed., t. 892 ; and our fig. 3, sinuated, wavy, toothed, glaucous, very smooth as well as the stem, 
in PI. 12. (Smith.) 
Specific Character. —Longer filaments toothed. Leaves roundish, 
Description, &c. —It is rather a curious fact in the history of culinary vegetables, that this plant, which is 
now almost exclusively confined to the tables of the rich, was formerly only eaten by the poorest fishermen in the 
south of England, whose wives and children were in the habit of watching when the shoots and young leaves 
began to push through the sand on the sea-coast, in the months of March and April, and then gathering them, 
to be boiled for food. About seventy or eighty years ago, a celebrated physician of that day, Dr. Lettsom, 
happened to be travelling along the southern coast of England ; when, in the neighbourhood of Southampton, he 
observed some women cutting a plant on the sea-coast, which appeared nearly buried in the sand, but which 
seemed to him very much like the young shoots of asparagus. He inquired what it was, and was told that it 
was called sea-kale, and that the poorer classes of fishermen were in the habit of eating it when they were short 
of other food. The Doctor, finding the shoots succulent, tasted one of them, and liked the flavour so well, that 
he ordered some of the plant to be sent to the inn, and cooked for his dinner; and he was so well pleased with 
it, that, on his return to town, he communicated what he justly thought a most valuable discovery, to his friend, 
Mr. Curtis, the originator of the Botanical Magazine, who then kept a nursery in Lambeth-marsli. Mr. Curtis 
contrived the present mode of cultivating the plant, and after writing a pamphlet in its praise, he sold the seeds 
in small packets at seven-and-sixpence and ten shillings each. The plant soon became a general favourite, and 
has continued so ever since; though, contrary to the general habit of cruciferous plants, it has remained totally 
unchanged by cultivation, except that, in a wild state, the root or underground stem becomes almost woody, and 
it sends out many spreading branches, which terminate in large showy panicles of snow-white flowers. The 
leaves are large and glaucous ; but they are frequently tinged with a brilliant purple. The plant is a perennial, 
and it flowers in June. 
