CHAP. 25.—RAPE. TURNIPS.
The other plants that are of a cartilaginous nature are concealed, all of them, in the earth. In the number of these is the rape, a subject upon which it would almost appear that we have treated981 at sufficient length already, were it not that we think it as well to observe, that medical men call those which are round “male,”982 while those which are larger and more elongated, are known to them as “female” rape: these last are superior in sweetness, and better for keeping, but by successive sowings they are changed into male rape.983
The same authors, too, have distinguished five different varieties of the turnip:984 the Corinthian, the Cleonæan, the Liothasian, the Bœotian, and the one which they have characterized as peculiarly the “green,” turnip. The Corinthian turnip985 grows to a very large size, and the root is all but out of the ground; indeed, this is the only kind that, in growing, shoots upwards, and not as the others do, downwards into the ground. The Liothasian is known by some persons as the Thracian turnip;986 it is the one that stands extreme cold the best of all. Next to it, the Bœotian kind is the sweetest; it is remarkable, also, for the roundness of its shape and its shortness; while the Cleonæan turnip,987 on the other hand, is of an elongated form. Those, in general, which have a thin, smooth leaf, are the sweetest; while those, again, the leaf of which is rough, angular, and prickly, have a pungent taste. There is a kind of wild turnip,988 also, the leaves of which resemble those of rocket.989 At Rome, the highest rank is given to the turnips of Amiternum,990 and those of Nursia; after them, those grown in the neighbourhood of the City991 are held in the next degree of esteem. The other particulars connected with the sowing of the turnip have been already mentioned992 by us when speaking of the rape.