Brassicaceae

“ In these the axis remains short, nearly as it is in the bud; the leaves therefore remain close together in sets or circles; the outer ones, those of the calyx, generally partake more or less of the character of foliage; the next set are more delicate, and form the corolla, while the rest, the stamens and pistils, appear under forms very different from those of ordinary leaves, and are concerned in the production of seed. This view gives to Botany an interest which one who merely notices the shape and counts the parts of blossoms, without understanding their plan, has no conception of. ”

“ For a further account of the culture &c. see Dickson's Modern Husbandry, vol. ii. p. 639.
There is nothing in husbandry requiring more care than the saving seeds of most of the plants of this tribe, and in particular of the Genus Brassica. If two sorts of turnips or cabbages are suffered to grow and bloom together, the pollen of each kind will be sufficiently mixed to impregnate each alternately, and a hybrid kind will be the produce, and in ninety-nine times out of a hundred a worse variety than either. ”

“ If, therefore, we suppose in a state of nature the seed of the wild Brassica oleracea to have been wafted from the sea-side to some spot enriched by the dung of animals, and to have there become a cauliflower, it would soon diffuse its seed to some comparatively sterile soils around, and the offspring would relapse to the likeness of the parent stock. ”

“ Fruit a nearly spherical 1-seeded berry containing the rudiment of the second cell and tipped with the short remnant of the style, surrounded at base by the persistent reflexed sepals; flesh becoming thick, dark purple, and juicy at maturity. Seed short-oblong to subglobose, solitary, suspended; seed-coat thin, coriaceous, orange-brown and lustrous; embryo subglobose, filling the cavity of the seed; cotyledons fleshy, plano-convex, puberulous; radicle superior, very short, uncinate, turned toward the small hilum and inclosed in a lateral cavity of the seed-coat. ”

“ Inflorescence.—Flowers in June along the base of the season's shoots; sterile and fertile flowers usually on separate trees,—the sterile in loose, few-flowered clusters, the fertile mostly solitary; peduncles and pedicels slender, bracted midway; calyx persistent, with 4 pointed, ciliate teeth; corolla white, monopetalous, with 4 roundish, oblong divisions; stamens 4, alternating with and shorter than the lobes of the corolla in the fertile flowers, but longer in the sterile; ovary green, nearly cylindrical, surmounted by the sessile, 4-lobed stigma. ”

“ V. Genus; VI. Species.
To illustrate: The white pine belongs to the highest great division (sub-kingdom) of the plant kingdom. The plants of this division all produce seeds, and hence are called “spermaphytes” (“seed plants”) . They may be divided into two groups (classes) , distinguished by certain peculiarities in the flowers and seeds. These are named respectively “gymnosperms” and “angiosperms,” and to the first our plant belongs. The gymnosperms may be further divided into several subordinate groups (orders) , one of which, the conifers, or cone-bearing evergreens, includes our plant. ”

“ Embryo thread-shaped, spirally coiled in the rather fleshy albumen, destitute of cotyledons, sometimes with a few alternate scales (belonging to the plumule) ; germination occurring in the soil.—Leafless annual herbs, with thread-like yellowish or reddish stems, bearing a few minute scales in place of leaves; on rising from the ground becoming entirely parasitic on the bark of herbs and shrubs on which they twine, and to which they adhere by means of suckers developed on the surface in contact. Flowers small, cymose-clustered, mostly white; usually produced late in summer and in autumn. ”

“ The double variety of this plant is less common in our gardens, and the single white variety is rare. These plants like a loamy soil, and eastern exposure—and should be removed when they are in blossom. The roots do not bear to be often separated; and if divided into small pieces are frequently lost: but if left undisturbed in a congenial situation, they will attain great luxuriance. Miller says the single varieties are easily propagated by seed; but our more modern gardeners do not coincide in this opinion. ”

“ The flowering plants have several distinct and visible organs for the formation and fertilization of their seed, to each of which is assigned a special and necessary office. In the flowerless section, on the contrary, there are none of these visibly separate agencies in reproduction, and what are usually termed the seeds do not show any parts representative of the developed product. In the true seeds, which belong to flowering plants alone, are contained the rudiments of a stem, leaves, and root, but in the spores of the flowerless plants nothing of the kind is found. ”

“ In garden flowers, also, we see most striking results of continuous selection. By taking advantage of the tendency of stamens and carpels to change occasionally into petals, and of petals to increase in number, “double flowers” have been effected. When “doubling” is complete—that is, when the conversion into petals is thorough—no seed can of course be produced, and the plants must be propagated by cuttings. Different other slight natural variations, exaggerated by selection and cultivation, have been the source of innumerable “varieties” in our gardens. ”

“ Varieties descended from three distinct species of Brassica have their stems, or so-called roots, enlarged into globular masses. The nectarine is the offspring of the peach; and the varieties of both these trees offer a remarkable parallelism in the fruit being white, red, or yellow fleshed—in being clingstones or freestones—in the flowers being large or small—in the leaves being serrated or crenated, furnished with globose or reniform glands, or quite destitute of glands. ”

“ Pod with evanescent partitions, and a thick axis bearing several anatropous seeds, 5-valved, the valves coiling elastically and projecting the seeds in bursting. Embryo straight; albumen none.—Leaves simple, alternate, without stipules, in our species ovate or oval, coarsely toothed, petioled. Flowers axillary or panicled, often of two sorts, viz.,—the larger ones, which seldom ripen seeds;—and very small ones, which are fertilized early in the bud; their floral envelopes never expand, but are forced off by the growing pod and carried upward on its apex. ”

“ Each of them contributed its advantageous qualities, such as round flowers, rosy color, erect flower stalks, elevation of the flowers above the foliage and others. New crosses are being made continuously, partly between the already existing hybrids and partly with newly introduced wild species. Only rarely is it possible to get pure seeds, and I have not yet been able to ascertain whether the hybrids would come true from seed. Specific and varietal characters may occur together in many of the several forms, but nothing is as yet accurately known as to their behavior in pure fertilizations. ”

“ Displacement of the branches or of the floral-leaves sometimes takes place. The flowers are often red at first, and later on become blue or violet; they hardly ever have any smell. The fruit entirely resembles that of the Labiatæ, but the radicle of the latter is turned downwards. The fruitlets present small differences which have systematic importance; they are hollow or flat at the base, attached to a flat or columnar receptacle, etc.
1. Heliotropieæ. This group deviates from the characteristics mentioned above in the undivided ovary and terminal (“apical”) style. ”

“ TURNIP, Brassica campestris, var. Rapa, a hardy biennial, found in cornfields in various parts of England. It has been cultivated from a remote period for its fleshy roots. The tender growing tops are also used in spring as a green vegetable. The so-called “root” is formed by the thickening of the primary root of the seedling together with the base of the young stem (hypocotyl) immediately above it. The great mass of the “root” consists of soft “wood” developed internally by the cambium layer and composed mainly of thin-walled, unlignified, wood-parenchyma. ”

“ It may barely exist under one class of conditions, or it may perish under another. The Brassica oleracea, in its native habitat on the shore of the sea, is a bitter plant with wavy sea-green leaves; in the cultivated garden it is the cauliflower. The single rose, under altered conditions, becomes a double rose; and creepers rear their stalks and stand erect. ”

“ But even in plants where the flowers are alike, the fruits often differ conspicuously, because fresh principles come into play for the dispersion and safe germination of the seed. This makes the study of fruits the most complicated part in the unravelling of plant life. After the strawberry has blossomed, the pulpy receptacle on which it bore its green fruitlets begins to swell and redden, till at length it grows into an edible berry, dotted with little yellow nuts, containing each a single seed. ”

“ Annual or perennial herbs, trees, or shrubs, with acrid often pungent juices, alternate or rarely opposite leaves, regular or irregular usually perfect flowers in terminal cymes or racemes or solitary, numerous ovules inserted in two rows on each of the two placentas, capsular or baccate 1-celled fruit, and seeds without albumen. A family of thirty-four genera, mostly confined to the warmer parts of the world and widely distributed in the two hemispheres. Of the seven genera which occur in North America only one has an arborescent representative. ”

“ Leaves reniform-orbicular, mostly larger (8–15 ́ wide) and more prominently ribbed than the last, rarely purplish beneath; rootstock bearing numerous spontaneously detaching often compound tubers; flower scentless (or with a slight odor as of apples) , white, never pinkish, 41⁄2–9 ́ in diameter, the petals proportionally broader and blunter than in n. 1; the fruit more depressed, and with fewer but much larger (i.e. twice as broad) globular-ovoid seeds, which when mature are barely enclosed by the aril and not stipitate. ”

“ The purely accidental or functional origin of this covering is testified by the immense variety of ways in which it has been developed. Sometimes a single seed has shown a slight tendency to succulence in its outer coat, and forthwith it has gone on laying up juices from generation to generation, until it has developed into a one-seeded berry. Sometimes a whole head of seeds has been surrounded by a fleshy stem, and the attention of animals has thenceforward encouraged its new habit by insuring the dispersion of its embryos. ”

“ Succulent herbs, with perfectly symmetrical flowers; viz., the petals and pistils equalling the sepals in number (3–20) , and the stamens the same or double their number,—technically different from Saxifrageæ only in this complete symmetry, and in the carpels (in most of the genera) being quite distinct from each other. Also, instead of a perigynous disk, there are usually little scales on the receptacle, one behind each carpel. Fruit dry and dehiscent; the pods (follicles) opening down the ventral suture, many-rarely few-seeded.—Stipules none. Flowers usually cymose, small. ”

“ In certain trees the bud first germinates within the seed, and, as it increases in size, the seeds split—all such seeds are, as it were, in two halves; again, all those of leguminous plants have plainly two lobes and are double—and then the root is immediately thrust out. But in cereals, the seeds being in one piece, this does not happen, but the root grows a little before [the shoot] .
‘Barley and wheat come up monophyllous, but peas, beans, and chick peas polyphyllous. All leguminous plants have a single woody root, from which grow slender side roots ... ”

“ Among those plants whose monstrosities of leaf-growth have been rendered subservient to the ordinary purposes of life, none exhibit such striking examples as the Brassica oleracea, or common rock-cabbage. ”

“ Grown from the seed they reproduce themselves with almost unvarying similarity, but the young seedlings produce larger berries than the older plants. The foliage of the White variety is of a lighter green than that of the Red, but in other respects there are no material differences, except in the color.
White and Red Monthly Alpines.—Varieties similar to the above, with the exception that they bear continuously through the summer and fall, if moisture is maintained and high culture given. If much fruit is desired, all runners should be cut, and the ground made rich. ”

“ He starts with explaining clearly and well the origin and position of buds, and their constant presence, whether developed or not, in the axil of the leaf: adding abundance of acute observations and experiments to prove his statements. The leaf he declares to be the first effort of the plant in spring: he proceeds to show, successively, that bracts, calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistil are each of them metamorphosed leaves, in every case giving many examples, both from monsters and from characters presented by those organs in their normal condition. ”

“ Thus the white cushion of the dandelion to which its brown seeds are attached, and the personal parachutes which belong to each, must be separately described for that species of plants; it is the little brown thing they sustain and carry away on the wind, which must be examined as the essential product of the floret;—the 'seed and husk.'
12. Every seed has a husk, holding either that seed alone, or other seeds with it.
Every perfect seed consists of an embryo, and the substance which first nourishes that embryo ”