WILD PLANTS USED AS FOOD. 187 



ria are boiled and used as an edible by the Swedish 

 peasantry. The earth round the roots of this plant 

 is sometimes washed away by the rain, leaving the 

 small tubers exposed to view. This, in superstitious 

 times, gave rise to the belief that it rained wheat, to 

 the grains of which these tubercles bear some resem- 

 blance. 



ASPARAGUS is a native both of South and of North 

 Britain, growing, though not very commonly, in 

 stony or gravelly situations near the sea. It is 

 sometimes found on the coasts of Dorsetshire and 

 Somersetshire, and less frequently in Seaton Links, 

 near Edinburgh. The steppes, or dry sandy flats, in 

 Poland and the South of Russia, which are partially 

 saline, and probably at some period of their history 

 have been washed by the sea, produce it much more 

 abundantly ; and in some places the ground is cover- 

 ed with it, to the exclusion of almost all other vegeta- 

 tion. When growing thus spontaneously, however, 

 it is a diminutive plant, and is browsed as grass by 

 horses and oxen.* None, indeed, but a practised 

 eye, examining into the minute parts of its structure, 

 could detect it to be the same species which is reared 

 by artificial culture. 



The inhabitants on the coast of Barbary eat the 

 young shoots of another species of asparagus,"f which 

 one would have supposed was sufficiently unfitted by 

 nature for the support of man. This is the thorny 

 asparagus, or asparagus horridus, beset with sharp 

 spines of three or four inches in length. It is said to 

 be indigenous to Spain, as well as to the opposite 

 coast of the Mediterranean. 



SEA-KALE is found growing wild on the sandy 

 downs near the sea, of Sweden, Denmark, England, 

 and partially of Scotland. From time immemorial 

 the country people in the west of England have been 



* London's Encyc. of Gard. t Desfontaines, voU i. 



