Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/160

86 any of the plants, even the grasses, can be called annuals. Of the five plants found blossoming during December by Captain Cook, four were observed in the same state in May, and three of them continued so until the twentieth of July; and in the month of June twelve out of the eighteen species were collected in flower. The repeated snow-storms had little influence in checking the verdure, and the umbelliferous plant was the only one actually frost-bitten by severe weather of three days' continuance.

"The more general features of the vegetation being thus cursorily noticed, there remains one plant which demands particular attention, the famous Cabbage of Kerguelen Island, hitherto unpublished, first discovered during Captain Cook's voyage. Specimens, together with a manuscript description, under the name of Pringlea, were deposited, in the collection formed by Mr. Anderson, in the British Museum, where they still exist. To a crew long confined to salt provisions, or indeed to human beings under any circumstances, this is a most important vegetable, for it possesses all the essentially good qualities of its English namesake, whilst from its containing a great abundance of essential oil, it never produces heartburn or any of those disagreeable sensations which our pot-herbs are apt to do. It abounds near the sea, and ascends the hills to their summits. The leaves form heads of the size of a good cabbage-lettuce, generally terminating an ascending or prostrate