BUCKWHEAT SNAKE-WEED. 411 



Chenopodium quinoa is a Peruvian plant, the seeds of 

 which are used as food. The meal prepared from them is said 

 to be very nutritious. 



C. bonus Henricus, English mercury, mercury goose-foot, or 

 Good King Henry, all-good and wild spinage. This plant 

 was formerly cultivated, as it still is in some gardens, as a 

 perennial spinage, since it is hardy and of early growth. C. 

 album is the most common of the species in this island, and 

 used to be boiled and eaten as greens. C. maritimum, also 

 native, is by many held to be the most suitable for food. 

 Probably nearly all the species are edible. Pigs are very fond 

 of C. album, yet Linnaeus says, what is very improbable, that 

 C. murale and C. hybridum are fatal to that animal. 



A triplex portulacoides } shrubby orache or sea-purslane, 

 and A. hortensis, have been used as food. A. portulacoides 

 requires a poor, gravelly soil, though it thrives best on the sea- 

 shore and in salt marshes. A. hortensis is sometimes called 

 mountain-spinage, and was formerly cultivated as a culinary 

 herb. It is still grown to a considerable extent in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Paris, and the leaves gathered as spinage. It is 

 believed that all the species might be used as pot-herbs. 



Basellacece, Basella order. Some species of basella are 

 used as spinage. Melloca tuberosa has a tuberous root, which 

 in Peru is used as a substitute for the potato. 



Phytoloccacem, Poke-weed order. The young shoots of 

 Phytolocca decandra, poke or pocan, are eaten as asparagus. 



Polygonacece, Buckwheat order. Polygonum bistorta, bis- 

 tort or snake-weed, is a strong astringent, yet the young 

 shoots were formerly eaten in herb-puddings in the north of 

 England, where the plant is known by the name of Easter 

 giant ; and about Manchester they are substituted for greens 

 under the name of Patience Dock.* P. aviculare, knot-grass 

 or hog-weed, affords seeds in much request among small birds. 



* London, ' Encyclopaedia of Plants,' p. 326. 



