17. Brassica Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 666. 1753; Gen. Pl. ed. 5, 299. 1754.
Cabbage, cole, mustard, turnip [Latin name for cabbage] Cabbage, cole, mustard, turnip [Latin name for cabbage]
Suzanne I. Warwick
Annuals, biennials, or, rarely, perennials; not scapose; glabrous, glabrescent, or pubescent. Stems erect, unbranched or branched distally. Leaves basal and cauline; petiolate or sessile; basal (persistent in B. tournefortii), rosulate or not, petiolate, blade margins entire, dentate, or lyrate-pinnatifid; cauline petiolate or sessile, blade (base sometimes auriculate or amplexicaul), margins entire, dentate, lobed, or sinuate-serrate. Racemes (corymbose), considerably elongated in fruit. Fruiting pedicels erect, spreading, ascending or divaricately-ascending, often slender. Flowers: sepals usually erect or ascending, rarely spreading, oblong [ovate], lateral pair usually saccate basally; petals yellow to orange-yellow [rarely white], obovate, ovate, elliptic, or oblanceolate, claw often differentiated from blade, (sometimes attenuate basally, apex rounded or emarginate); stamens tetradynamous; filaments slender; anthers oblong or ovate, (apex obtuse); nectar glands confluent or not, median glands present. Fruits siliques, dehiscent, sessile or stipitate, segments 2, linear, torulose or smooth, terete, 4-angled, or latiseptate; (terminal segment seedless or 1-3-seeded, usually filiform or conic, rarely cylindrical); valves each prominently 1-veined, glabrous; replum rounded; septum complete; ovules [4-]10-50 per ovary; stigma entire or 2-lobed. Seeds uniseriate, plump, not winged, globose; seed coat (reticulate or reticulate-alveolate), mucilaginous or not when wetted; cotyledons conduplicate. x = 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
Species 35 (8 in the flora): introduced; sw Europe, sw Asia, e, nw Africa; introduced also in Mexico, West Indies, Central America, South America, Atlantic Islands, Pacific Islands (New Zealand), Australia.
SELECTED REFERENCES Diederichsen, A. 2001. Brassica. In: P. Hanelt, ed. 2001. Mansfeld’s Encyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops…. 6 vols. Berlin and New York. Vol. 3, pp. 1435-1465. Gómez-Campo, C. 1999. Taxonomy. In: C. Gómez-Campo, ed. 1999b. Biology of Brassica Coenospecies. Amsterdam. Pp. 3-32. Prakash, S. and K. Hinata. 1980. Taxonomy, cytogenetics and origin of crop brassicas, a review. Opera Bot. 55: 1-57. Snogerup, S., M. Gustafsson, and R. von Bothmer. 1990. Brassica sect. Brassica (Brassicaceae). 1. Taxonomy and variation. Willdenowia 19: 271-365.
