Brassica

Brassica, a genus of the order Cruciferae, having conduplicate cotyledons and a beaked apex to its siliqua, and including about 100 species. It includes a large number of useful plants, many of which are but long cultivated races of a small number of wild species. B. oleracea, the cabbage, a biennial sea-side plant with glaucous fleshy undulate leaves, is not only the parent form of all the various kales, broccoli, kohl-rabi, etc., but possibly also of B. campestris, which includes B. rapa, the turnip, B. napus, the rape or colza, and the apparently hybrid swede (B. campestris var. Napobrassica). The sub-genus Sinapis, with sepals spreading instead of erect, includes B. nigra, black mustard, and B. alba, white mustard, British species, the crushed seeds of which yield the pungent "flour of mustard," whilst the young seedlings of the latter species are eaten with "those of cress as a salad, B. juncea, a native of India yielding mustard-seed oil or "soorsa," largely used in Russia instead of olive-oil, and many other species employed in other countries.