Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/272

240 that the point of an instrument may be placed between them, each arises immediately from the insertion of the funiculi, separating the parallel rows of seeds, a space occupied in Pringlea by a distinct groove or channel. The form of the seed and the thick spongy testa produced at the apex into a short rostrum, are far more characteristic of cruciferous plants with an incumbent than with an accumbent radicle; but that organ is here, as in Cocldearia, distinctly accumbent.

The contemplation of a vegetable very unlike any other in botanical affinity and in general appearance, so eminently fitted for the food of man, and yet inhabiting one of the most desolate and inhospitable spots on the surface of the globe, must equally fill the mind of the scientific enquirer and common observer with wonder. The very fact of Kerguelen's Land being possessed of such a singularly luxuriant botanical feature, confers on that small island an importance far beyond what its volcanic origin or its dimensions would seem to claim; whilst the certainty that so conspicuous a plant can never have been overlooked in any larger continent, but that it was created in all probability near where it now grows, leads the mind back to an epoch far anterior to the present, when the vegetation of the Island of Desolation may have presented a fertility of which this is perhaps the only remaining trace. Many tons of coal and vast stores of now silicified wood (which I have mentioned in the introduction to this Part) are locked up in or buried under those successive geological formations which have many times destroyed the forests of this island, and as often themselves supported a luxuriant vegetation. The fires that desolated Kerguelen's Land are long ago extinct, nor does the island show any signs of the recent exertion of those powers, that have at one time raised parts of it from the bed of the ocean with those submarine alga? which once carpetted its shores, but which now are some hundred feet above, the present level of the sea. The Pringlea, in short, seems to have led an uninterrupted and tranquil life for many ages; but however loth we may be to concede to any one vegetable production an antiquity greater than another, or to this island a position to other lands wholly different from what it now presents, the most casual inspection of the ground where the plant now grows, will force one of the two following conclusions upon the mind; either that it was created after the extinction of the now buried and for ever lost vegetation, over whose remains it abounds, or that it spread over the island froni another and neighbouring region where it was undisturbed during the devastation of this, but of whose existence no indication remains.

The illustrious Cook first discovered and drew attention to the "Kerguelen's Land Cabbage" during his first voyage, when accompanied by Mr. Anderson as surgeon and naturalist. The latter gentleman drew up an account of some of the more remarkable plants which he collected there and in other islands, which are preserved in the Banksian library ; the present he designated as Pringlea in honour of Sir John Pringle, who wrote a work upon Scurvy. The latter circumstance has induced me, at Mr. Brown's suggestion, to assign the trivial name of anti-scoriutica. The Pringlea is exceedingly abundant over all parts of the island, ascending the lulls up to 1400 feet, but only attaining its usually large size close to the sea, where it is invariably the first plant to greet the voyager, like the Cocldearia or scurvy-grass upon many northern coasts. Its long rhizomata, often 3 or 4 feet long, lie along the ground ; they are sometimes 2 inches in diameter, full of spongy and fibrous substance intermixed, of a half woody texture, and with the flavour of horse-radish, and bear at the extremity large heads of leaves, sometimes 18 inches across, so like those of the common cabbage that if growing in a garden with then' namesakes in England they would not excite any particular attention ; the outer leaves are coarse, loosely placed and spreading, the inner form a dense white heart, that tastes like mustard and cress, but is much coarser. The whole foliage abounds with essential oil of a pale yellow colour, highly pungent, and confined in vessels that run parallel with the veins of the leaf, and which are very conspicuous on making a transverse section of the head.

Dining the whole stay of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' in Christmas Harbour, daily use was made of this vegetable, either cooked by itself or boiled with the ships' beef, pork, or pea-soup ; the essential oil gives a peculiar flavour which the majority of the officers and the crew did not dislike, and which rendered the herb even more wholesome than the common cabbage, for it never caused heart-burn, or any of the unpleasant symptoms which that plant sometimes produces. Invaluable as it is in its native place, it is very doubtful whether this plant will ever prove equally so in other situations. It is of such slow growth that it probably could not be cultivated to advantage, and I fear that, unlike the cow cabbage of Jersey, it would form no new heads after the old ones were removed,