Question

Which plant is described by these clues? Its genus name was borrowed from Latin, where Pliny the Elder used it for a group of kitchen-garden greens. Its species name is Latin for belonging to the kitchen garden, a plant fit to be cooked as a vegetable or potherb. Each flower has four separate petals set in a cross over four {sepals}, with six {stamens} of which four are tall and two are short. Its wild ancestors cling to chalk and limestone sea cliffs along the coasts of western Europe, tolerating salt spray and lime but not crowding. After flowering, the slim pods split along two seams and end in a short beak that holds no seeds. The thick, fleshy leaves are blue-grey and {glaucous}, and in the first year they form a loose {rosette} close to the ground. Bruised leaves release a sharp, sulphurous, peppery smell from defence compounds that cooking softens. This form carries flat, deeply lobed oak-leaf-shaped blades 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) long, with {veins} and stems that turn reddish-purple as cold deepens the {anthocyanin}. People have bred this one species into broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi and a whole range of leafy greens. It is the flat-leaved heirloom green with purple veins that grows sweeter after frost, is cut as tender baby leaf in 25 to 30 days, and is easily told from its curly-leaved and strap-leaved cousins.

Accepted Answer

Brassica oleracea 'Red Russian'

Name That Plant #133