19 
clumps will last for years 1f cut regularly, with the flowering stalks 
cut to the ground as they appear. Use the youngest, small leaves 
arger may be minced for soup. 
— 
for salads and garnishing. The 
Wild sorrel has a tougher leaf and less pleasant flavor but may 
be used. 
JAMAICA SoRREL (/fibiscus Sabdariffa). A tropical plant, 
called “roselle,” 
jelly, tarts, and cooling drinks. Lemon juice can be added to the 
whose acid calyxes are used in making roselle 
jelly, which is made from the juice of the roselles, to make a more 
tart flavor. 
42, SOUTHERNWooD (Artemisia Abrotanum) is not used today 
in cooking, but is indispensable in the herb garden to add atmos- 
phere, fragrance, and stability of growth. Its ashes, mixed with 
old salad oil, were once thought to make hair grow where none 
ever grew before. It was called, variously, “Old Man,’ “Lad’s 
Love,” or “Maiden’s Ruin,” and “Appleringie” in Scotland, where 
the shrub was often used as a bleaching spot for fine handker- 
chiefs because of the pleasant fragrance imparted to the linen. It 
is often used in clothes closets as moth preventive, and hence called 
— 
garderobe in France. 
It is a woody shrub, propagated by slips in the spring or fall, 
or by root division at almost any time. It grows ragged and leggy 
if left without cutting back severely in spring. It is said to do 
well in town window boxes as it can stand the smoke of cities very 
well. 
43. SPEARMINT (Mentha spicata) has practically the same prop- 
erties as the other mints (see Peppermint) without the same vola- 
tile menthol content as M. piperita. It has a stronger, sharper 
taste and is the mint used for juleps, in mint sauce for lamb, and 
for iced tea. Curly mint (1/7. spicata crispa) makes a particularly 
delicious mint sauce; it has a rounder leaf than spearmint, with a 
little frilled edge. There are so many hybrid mints, they have 
become confused and called by various names in different localities. 
The very tall growing MW. niliaca (MW. longifolia x rotundifolia) is 
weedy but grand to use in summer arrangements, as the downy, 
silvery-green leaves are lovely in arrangements on hot summer 
days; they have a cool, frosty appearance, and mint in a room is 
said to cool the atmosphere 
