The cole family — lolly , boodle , collards , Brussels sprout , and cauliflower – is also known by the scientific name , Brassica oleracea , and descend from a common wild root that still exists . The originalBrassica oleracea grew along the British and French coasts and around the Mediterranean Sea . Growers sought more leaf and then more tightly cluster leaves , leading first to kale and then to cabbage .
The Original LoneBrassica oleracea
The originalBrassica oleraceais described as either a raging mustard or a dotty scratch . As a coastal industrial plant , it tolerates salt from salt water , but it does not compete well against other plants that invade its territory . That sequestrate it to originate on cool , damp , stony cliffs . Like succulents , it relies on thickish folio to retain nutrients and pee .
The Greeks and Romans
The Greeks had domesticatedBrassica oleraceaby the fourth hundred BC and had arise three varieties – one with flat leave , one with curly foliage , and a loose - leafed cabbage . Both the Greeks and Romans sought to increase the size of their harvests by economise the cum of the plant that produce the most leaves . attempt to increase the number of leaves per plant may have led to soaked clusters of leaf and then to headed cabbages . The Greeks referred to head cabbages as krambe while the Romans called them olus or brasssica , hence our scientific name .
Cabbage was use up and used for medicative purposes in both ancient Greece and Rome . The Greeks trust that Brassica oleracea was harmful to grape vine and would spread its odour to the grapes . From that belief , they fare to regard cabbage as an anecdote to drink .
The Middle Ages, Charlemagne, and the Renaissance
lettuce and kale were common vegetable in the Middle Ages . They are let in in images contained in illuminated holograph , and a document with educational activity for managing the purple estates of Charlemagne , the Capitulare de villis , includes cabbage among the vegetable that were to be produce .
While the Anglo - Saxons who settle in Britain grew a cabbage they referred to as cawel , around - headed cabbages did n’t appear there until the 14th hundred .
A number of cabbage varieties were created in the Low Countries of Europe as well as Germany and France . For representative , Savoy loot was developed by German farmers in the 16th hundred . Through the 17th and eighteenth century , cabbage was a dieting basic in such countries as :
Pickled cabbage was a common dish antenna , and German , Dutch , and Norse explorers took sauerkraut with them on their long voyages to help prevent scorbutus .
The New World and Beyond
Trade itinerary carried lolly from Europe to Egypt , Mesopotamia , and Asia . Portuguese traders introduce kale to India from the fourteenth to seventeenth century .
Cabbage was introduced to the Americas by Jacque Cartier between 1541 and 1542 , and both the native American Indians and the colonists were growing it by the 18th one C . The First Fleet comport cabbage source to Australia in 1788 .
Carl Linnaeus briefly separate the family line in the 18th century when he reclassify the oilseed - producing members , such asNapa bread , as belonging to a different coinage and rename them Brassica rapa . scientist in the twentieth century discovered that members of the Brassica rapa and the Brassica oleracea clans could cover fertilise each other , however , mean that they were one metal money after all .
Cabbage was still unknown in Japan in 1775 , but since then , the Japanese have come to know cabbage so well that they develop many of theornamental cabbages .
