EDIBLE STEMS AND LEAVES 



~^ 



new leaves should appear, crisp and white and ready 

 for the salad bowl. 



Another old-fashioned pot-herb that may be 

 gathered freely in the spring is the early growth 

 of that familiar weed of gardens and waste places 

 throughout the land, the homely Pigweed (Cheno- 

 podium album, L.), or Lamb's quarters. This 

 latter queer name, by the way, like the plant itself, 

 is a waif from England, and according to Prior 1 is 

 a corruption of "Lammas quarter, " an ancient 

 festival in the English calendar with which a kindred 

 plant (Atriplex patula), of identical popular name 

 and usage, had some association. Of equal or per- 

 haps greater vogue are the young spring shoots of 

 the Pokeweed (Phytolacca decandra, L.) boiled in 

 two waters (and in the second with a bit of fat pork) 

 and served with a dash of vinegar. So, too, the 

 first, tender sprouts of the common eastern Milk- 

 weed (Asclepias Syriaca, L.) have garnished country 

 tables in the spring as a cooked vegetable, but the 

 older stems are too acrid and milky for use. Mr. 

 J. M. Bates, writing in "The American Botanist, " 

 speaks of this and of the closely related species, A. 

 speciosa, Torr., of the region west of the Mississippi, 

 as the best of all wild greens, provided they are 



i "On the Popular Names of British Plants," R. C. A. Prior, M. D. 



119 



