142 FAMILIAR Jl 1LH FLOWERS. 



The tall stems and great heart-shaped leaves of the garlic- 

 mustard are conspicuous on almost every hedge-bank during 

 the early summer, and the plant may be readily dis- 

 tinguished from anything else at all like it by its strong 

 garlic-like taste and odour. On this account it was at one 

 time largely employed in the rustic we/in, either eaten 

 ///' iifttnrel with bread and butter, or boiled as a pot-herb. 

 AVe have heard, too, of its being fried with herrings and 

 bacon, and in Germany it is largely eaten as a salad and 

 anti-scorbutic with salt meat. According to Bautsch, it has 

 been found useful in tanning, but whatever value it may 

 possess in this way its being inferior to oak-bark and other 

 materials will always prevent its being of any practical 

 service. Horses and sheep refuse it, but cows will eat it, 

 though it is very undesirable that they should, unless 

 their owner is so partial to garlic that he considers it 

 a desirable flavouring to his milk and butter. 



The strong garlic-like odour of the plant is expressed 

 not only in its popular name, but in the generic title as 

 well, Alii art o being derived from allinm, the Latin word 

 for garlic. Ray, in his "Synopsis Methodica Stirpium 

 Britannic-arum," published in the year 1724, calls it the 

 H<-x/>('rix (iUiinii redolent, a title equally redolent of the 

 garlic. Another popular name for the plant is the sauce- 

 alone. It has been very naturally suggested that this 

 name was given to the herb from the fact that its use in 

 homely cookery rendered any other flavouring unnecessary ; 

 but as we find that the true garlic in Spain is the ajo, in 

 Portugal the alho, while in France it is called ail or 

 ailloigiion, and in Italy aglio and aglione, it is probable 

 that we are again confronted with a reference to its garlic- 

 like odour, and that sauce-alone is after all sauce-garlic. 



