SINAPI, MUSTARD; a genus of the siliquosa order, belonging to the tetradymania class of plants. The principal species are, 1. The alba, or white mustard, which is generally cultivated as a salad-herb for winter and spring use. This rises with a branched hairy stalk two feet high; the leaves are deeply jagged on their edges and rough. The flowers are disposed in loose spikes at the end of the branches, standing upon horizontal footstalks; they have four yellow petals in form of a cross, which are succeeded by hairy pods that end with long, compressed oblique beaks; the pods generally contain four white seeds.
2. The nigra, or common mustard, which is frequently found growing naturally in many parts of Britain, but is also cultivated in fields for the feed, of which the sauce called mustard is made. This rises with a branching stalk four or five feet high; the lower leaves are large, rough, and very like those of turnep; the upper leaves are smaller and less jagged. The flowers are small, yellow, and grow in spiked clusters at the end of the branches; they have four petals placed in form of a cross, and are succeeded by smooth four-cornered pods.
3. The arvensis, grows naturally on arable land in many
many parts of England. The seed of this is commonly sold under the title of Durham mustard-feed; of this there are two varieties, if not distinct species: one with cut, the other has entire leaves. The stalks rise two feet high; the leaves are rough, and in one they are jagged like turnep-leaves; the other are long and entire. The flowers are yellow; the pods are turgid, angular, and have long beaks.
Mustard, by its acrimony and pungency, stimulates the solids, and attenuates viscous juices; and hence stands deservedly recommended for exciting appetite, assisting digestion, promoting the fluid secretions, and for the other purposes of the acrid plants called antiscorbutic. It imparts its taste and smell in perfection to aqueous liquors, whilst spirit of wine extracts very little of either: the whole of the pungency arises with water in distillation. By expression it yields a considerable quantity of a soft insipid oil, perfectly void of acrimony: the cake left after the expression is more pungent than the mustard was at first.—By distillation with a violent fire, mustard yields a volatile alkali, empyreumatic oil, and a small quantity of phosphorus.