POT-HERBS 35 



not been but lately used in England, viz. selleri, which 

 is nothing else but the sweet smallage ; the young 

 shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root 

 cut off, they eat raw with oil and pepper." By the 

 " sweet smallage " Ray doubtless meant Apium graveo- 

 lens, or wild celery, a plant not uncommon in wet 

 places, especially near the sea, and which is un- 

 doubtedly the origin of our garden celery. At that 

 time, however, the root of Smyrnium Olusatrum, the 

 common alexanders, seems to have been used in the 

 place of celery, for Gerarde says, "the roote hereof 

 is in our age served to the table raw for a sallade 

 herbe." This plant is one of the most ancient of 

 vegetables. From the time of Dioscorides it has been 

 in use as a pot-herb (as its specific name signifies), 

 "boiled and eaten like greens," besides being " served 

 raw as a sallade herbe." Its ancient use is now 

 entirely abandoned and its very name forgotten, the 

 plant being mostly confounded with the "wild celery," 

 by which name it is known in the Isle of Wight. It 

 is not, however, an uncommon plant, especially in the 

 neighbourhood of monastic ruins, where it is doubt- 

 less an outcast from the old convent garden. The 

 writer has noticed it, among other localities, in the 

 "old churchyard" at Dunwich on the coast of Suffolk ; 

 among the ruins of Portchester Castle where there 

 was once a priory of Austin Canons ; beside the 

 crumbling remains of Southwick Priory; at Caris- 

 brooke in the Isle of Wight ; and in a copse near 

 the picturesque ruins of Quarr Abbey. 



The water-cress, so abundant in our streams, and 

 now so extensively cultivated for the market, has been 

 known for ages as an early and wholesome spring 

 salad, and among other native plants once used as 



