The Kinds.

            There be sundry sorts of turnips; some wild; some of the garden; some with round roots globe fashion; other oval or pear fashion; and another sort longish or somewhat like a Radish: and of all these there are sundry varieties, some being great, and some of a smaller sort.

The Description.

            1. The Turnip hath long rough and green leaves, cut or snipped about the edges with deep gashes. The stalk divideth itself into sundry branches or arms, bearing at the top small flowers of a yellow colour, and sometimes of a light purple: which being past, there do succeed long cods full of small blackish seed like rape seed. The root is round like a bowl, and sometimes a little stretched out in length, growing very shallow in the ground, and often showing itself above the face of the earth.

            2. This is like the precedent in each respect, but that the root is not made so globous or bowl-fashioned as the former, but slenderer, and much longer, as you may perceive by the figure we here give you.

            3. The Small Turnip is like unto the first described, saving that it is lesser. The root is much sweeter in taste, as myself hath often proved.

            4. There is another sort of small Turnip said to have red roots; and there are other some whose roots are yellow both within and without; some also are green on the outside, and other some blackish.

The Place.

            The Turnip prospereth well in a light, loose, and fat earth, and so loose, as Petrus Crescentius saith, that it may be turned almost into dust. It groweth in fields and divers vineyards or hop gardens in most places of England.

            The small Turnip groweth by Hackney, in a sandy ground; and those that are brought to Cheapside market from that village are the best that ever I tasted.

The Time.

            Turnips are sown in the spring, as also in the end of August. They flower and seed the second year after they are sown: for those which flower the same year that they are sown are a degenerate kind, called in Cheshire about Nantwitch, Mad Neeps, of their evil quality in frenzy and giddiness of the brain for a season.

The Names.

            The Turnip is called in Latin, Rapum: the name commonly used in shops and everywhere is Rapa: in High Dutch, Ruben: in Low Dutch, Rapen; in French, Naveau rond: in Spanish, Nabo: in English, Turnip, and Rape.

The Temperature and Virtues.

            A. The bulbous or knobbed root, which is properly called Rapum or Turnip, and hath given the name to the plant, is many times eaten raw, especially of the poor people in Wales, but most commonly boiled. The raw root is windy, and engendereth gross and cold blood; the boiled doth cook less, and so little, that it cannot be perceived to cool at all, yet it is moist and windy.

            B. It availeth not a little after what manner it is prepared; for being boiled in water, or in a certain broth, it is more moist, and sooner descendeth, and maketh the body more soluble; but being roasted or baked it drieth, and engendereth less wind, and yet it is not altogether without wind. But howsoever they be dressed, they yield more plenty of nourishment than those that are eaten raw: they do increase milk in women's breasts, and natural seed, and provoke urine.

            C. The decoction of Turnips is good against the cough and hoarseness of the voice, being drunk in the evening with a little sugar, or a quantity of clarified honey.

            D. Dioscorides writeth, That the Turnip itself being stamped, is with good success applied upon mouldy or kibed heels, and that also oil of roses boiled in a hollow turnip under the hot embers doth cure the same.

            E. The young and tender shoots or springs of Turnips at their first coming forth of the ground, boiled and eaten as a salad, provoke urine.

            F. The seed is mixed with counterpoisons and treacles: and being drunk it is a remedy against poisons.

            G. They of the Low Countries do give the oil which is pressed out of the seed, against the after throes of women newly brought to bed, and also minister it to young children against the worms, which it both killeth and driveth forth.

            H. The oil washed with water doth allay the fervent heat and ruggedness of the skin.