THE CRUCIFORM-FLOWERED PLANTS.
Tutor—George—Harry.
Tutor—George—Harry.
Tutor—George—Harry.
George.How rich yon field looks with its yellow flowers! I wonder what they can be?
Tutor.Suppose you go and see if you can find it out; and bring a stalk of the flowers with you.
Geo.(Returning). I know now—they are turnips.
Tut.I thought you could make it out when you came near them. These turnips are left to seed, which is the reason why you see them run to flower. Commonly they are pulled up sooner.
Harry.I should not have thought a turnip had so sweet a flower.
Geo.I think I have smelt others like them. Pray, sir, what class of plants do they belong to?
Tut.To a very numerous one, with which it is worth your while to get acquainted. Let us sit down and examine them. The petal, you observe, consists of four flat leaves set opposite to each other, or crosswise. From this circumstance the flowers have been calledcruciform.As most plants with flowers of this kind bear their seeds in pods, they have likewise been called thesiliquoseplants,siliquabeing the Latin for a pod.
Geo.But the papilionaceous flowers bear pods, too.
Tut.True; and therefore the name is not a good one. Now pull off the petals one by one. You see they are fastened by long claws within the flower cup. Now count the chives.
Har.There are six.
Geo.But they are not all of the same length—two are much shorter than the rest.
Tut.Well observed. It is from this that Linnæus has formed a particular class for the whole tribe, which he callstetradynamia, a word implyingfour powers, or thepower of four, as if the four longer chives were more perfect and efficacious than the two shorter; which, however, we do not know to be the case. This superior length of four chives is conspicuous in most plants of this tribe, but not in all. They have, however, other resemblances which are sufficient to constitute them a natural family; and accordingly all botanists have made them such.
The flowers, as I have said, have in all of them four petals placed crosswise. The calyx also consists of four oblong and hollow leaves. There is a single pistil, standing upon a seed-bud, which, turns either into a long pod, or a short round one called a pouch; and hence are formed the two great branches of the family, the podded and the pouched. The seed-vessel has two valves, or external openings, with a partition between. The seeds are small and roundish, attached alternately to both sutures or joinings of the valves. Do you observe all these circumstances?
Geo. and Har.We do.
Tut.You shall examine them more minutely in a larger plant of the kind. Further, almost all these plants have somewhat of a biting taste, and also a disagreeable smell in their leaves, especially when decayed. A turnip-field, you know, smells but indifferently; and cabbage, which is one of this class, is apt to be remarkably offensive.
Har.Yes, there is nothing worse than rotten cabbage-leaves.
Geo.And the very water in which they are boiled is enough to scent a whole house.
Tut.The flowers, however, of almost all the family are fragrant, and some remarkably so. What do you think of wall-flowers, and stocks?
Har.What, are they of this kind?
Tut.Yes—and so is candy-tuft, and rocket.
Har.Then they are not to be despised.
Tut.No—and especially as not one of the whole class, I believe, is poisonous; but, on the contrary, many of them afford good food for man and beast. Shall I tell you about the principal of them?
Geo.Pray do, sir.
Tut.The pungency of taste which so many of them possess has caused them to be used for salad herbs. Thus we have cress, water-cress, and mustard; to which might be added many more which grow wild, as lady-smock, wild-rocket, hedge-mustard, and jack-by-the-hedge, or sauce-alone. Mustard, you know, is also greatly used for its seeds, the powder or flower of which, made into a sort of paste with salt and water, is eaten with many kinds of meat. Rape-seeds are very similar to them, and from both an oil is pressed out, of the mild or tasteless kind, as it is likewise from cole-seed, another product of this class. Scurvy-grass, which is a pungent plant of this family, growing by the seaside, has obtained its name from being a remedy for the scurvy. Then there is horseradish, with the root of which I am sure you are well acquainted, as a companion to roast beef. Common radish, too, is a plant of this kind, which has a good deal of pungency. One sort of it has a root like a turnip, which brings it near in quality to the turnip itself. This last plant, though affording a sweet and mild nutriment, has naturally a degree of pungency and rankness.
Geo.That, I suppose, is the reason why turnipy milk and butter have such a strong taste?
Tut.It is.
Har.Then why do they feed cows with it?
Tut.In this case as in many others, quality is sacrificed to quantity. But the better use of the turnip to the farmer is to fatten sheep and cattle. By its assistance he is enabled to keep many more of these animals than he could find grass or hay for; and the culture of turnips prepares his land for grain as well, or better, than could be done by letting it lie quite fallow. Turnip husbandry, as it is called, is one of the capital modern improvements of agriculture.
Geo.I think I have heard that Norfolk is famous for it.
Tut.It is so. That county abounds in light sandy lands, which are peculiarly suitable to turnips. But they are now grown in many parts of England besides. Well—but we must say something more aboutcabbage, an article of food of very long standing. The original species of this is a seaside plant, but cultivation has produced a great number of varieties well known in our gardens, as white and red cabbage, kale, colewort,brocoli, borecole, and cauliflower.
Har.But the flower of cauliflower does not seem at all like that of cabbage or turnip.
Tut.The white head, called its flower, is not properly so, but consists of a cluster of imperfect buds. If they are left to grow for seed, they throw out some spikes of yellow flowers like common cabbage.Brocoliheads are of the same kind. As to the head of white or red cabbage, it consists of a vast number of leaves closing round each other, by which the innermost are prevented from expanding, and remain white on account of the exclusion of the light and air. This part, you know, is most valued for food. In some countries they cut cabbage-heads into quarters, and make them undergo a kind of acid fermentation; after which they are salted and preserved for winter food, under the name ofsour-krout.
Geo.Cattle, too, are sometimes fed with cabbage, I believe.
Tut.Yes, and large fields of them are cultivated for that purpose. They succeed best in stiff clayey soils, where they sometimes grow to an enormous bigness. They are given to milch kine as well as to fattening cattle.
Geo.Do not they give a bad taste to the milk?
Tut.They are apt to do so unless great care is taken to pick off all the decayed leaves.
Coleworts, which are a smaller sort of cabbage, are sometimes grown for feeding sheep and cattle. I think I have now mentioned most of the useful plants of this family, which you see are numerous and important. They both yield beef and mutton, and the sauce to them. But many of the species are troublesome weeds. You see how yonder corn is overrun with yellow flowers.
Geo.Yes: they are as thick as if they had been sown.
Tut.They are of this family, and called charlock, or wild mustard, or corn kale, which, indeed, are not all exactly the same things, though nearly resembling. These produce such plenty of seeds, that it is very difficult to clear a field of them, if once they are suffered to grow till the seeds ripen. An extremely common weed in gardens and by roadsides is shepherd’s-purse, which is a very good specimen of the pouch-bearing plants of this tribe, its seed-vessels being exactly the figure of a heart. Lady-smock isoften so abundant a weed in wet meadows as to make them all over white with their flowers. Some call this plant cuckoo-flower, because its flowering is about the same time with the first appearance of that bird in spring.
Geo.I remember some pretty lines in a song about spring, in which lady-smock is mentioned:—
“When daisies pied, and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,Do paint the meadows with delight.”
“When daisies pied, and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,Do paint the meadows with delight.”
“When daisies pied, and violets blue,And lady-smocks all silver white,And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,Do paint the meadows with delight.”
“When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.”
Tut.They are Shakspeare’s. You see he gives the name of cuckoo-bud to some other flower, a yellow one, which appears at the same season. But still earlier than this time, walls and hedge-banks are enlivened by a very small white flower, called whitlow-grass, which is one of the tribe.
Har.Is it easy to distinguish the plants of this family from one another?
Tut.Not very easy; for the general similarity of the flowers is so great, that little distinction can be drawn from them. The marks of the species are chiefly taken from the form and manner of growth of the seed-vessel, and we will examine some of them by the descriptions in a book of botany. There is one very remarkable seed-vessel, which probably you have observed in the garden. It is a perfectly round large flat pouch, which after it has shed its seed, remains on the stalk and looks likes a thin white bladder. The plant bearing it is commonly called honesty.
Har.O, I know it very well! It is put into winter flower-pots.
Tut.True. So much, then, for the tetradynamous or cruciform-flowered plants. You cannot well mistake them for any other class, if you remark the six chives, four of them, generally, but not always, longer than the two others; the single pistil changing either into a long pod or a round pouch containing the seeds; the four opposite petals of the flower, and four leaves of the calyx. You may safely make a salad of the young leaves wherever you find them: the worst they can do to you is to bite your tongue.