and
cherished for its sweet scent. The garden Thyme (_T. vulgaris_) must of
course be in every herb garden; and there are a few species which make
good plants for the rockwork, such as T. lanceolatus from Greece, a very
low-growing shrub, with narrow, pointed leaves; T. carnosus, which makes
a pretty little shrub, and others; while the Corsican Thyme (_Mentha
Requieni_) is perhaps the lowest and closest-growing of all herbs,
making a dark-green covering to the soil, and having a very strong
scent, though more resembling Peppermint than Thyme.

TOADSTOOLS, _see_ MUSHROOMS.

TURNIPS.

_Anne._

Alas! I had rather be set quick i' the earth
And boul'd to death with Turnips.

_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act iii, sc. 4 (89).

The Turnips of Shakespeare's time were like ours, and probably as good,
though their cultivation seems to have been chiefly confined to gardens.
It is not very certain whether the cultivated Turnip is the wild Turnip
improved in England by cultivation, or whether we are indebted for it to
the Romans, and that the wild one is only the degenerate form of the
cultivated plant; for though the wild Turnip is admitted into the
English flora, yet its right to the admission is very doubtful. But if
we did not get the vegetable from the Romans we got its name. The old
name for it was _noep_, _nep_, or _neps_, which was only the English
form of the Latin _napus_, while Turnip is the corruption of _terrae
napus_, but when the first syllable was added I do not know. There is a
curious perversion in the name, for our Turnip is botanically Brassica
rapa, while the Rape is Brassica napus, so that the English and Latin
have changed places, the Napus becoming a Rape and the Rapa a Nep.

The present large field cultivation of Turnips is of comparatively a
modern date, though the field Turnip and garden Turnip are only
varieties of the same species, while there are also many varieties both
of the field and garden Turnip. "One field proclaims the Scotch variety,
while the bluer cast tells its hardy Swedish origin; the tankard
proclaims a deep soil, and the lover of boiled mutton, rejoicing, sees
the yellower tint of the Dutch or Stone Turnip, which he desires to meet
with again in the market."--PHILLIPS.

It is not very easy to speak of the moral qualities of Turnips, or to
make them the symbols of much virtue, yet Gwillim did so: "He beareth
sable, a Turnip proper, a