USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



^fr. Simons in London, he found the gentleman 

 abroad, ''but she, like a good lady, within, and there 

 we did eat some nettle porridge, which was made 

 on purpose to-day for some of their coming, and was 

 very good." Was it not Goldsmith who wrote that 

 a French cook of the olden time could make seven 

 different dishes out of a nettle-top I 



Along our Southwestern border from Texas to 

 California and southward into Mexico a species of 

 Amaranth grows (Amarmithus Pahncri, Wats.), 

 known to the Mexicans and Indians as quelite (a 

 general name among the Mexican population, I 

 believe, for greens) or more specifically as hledo. 

 The latter word is good Spanish for ''blite," an Old 

 AVorld pot-herb. Quelite is highly regarded when 

 young and tender as a vegetable for men, and, when 

 cut and stacked, as a winter feed for cattle. It is a 

 stout, weedy annual, two to four feet high, the ovate 

 leaves one to four inches long on footstalks about 

 twice that length, the greenish flowers of two sexes 

 (on different plants) disposed in long, dense chaffy 

 spikes. Only the young plants should be gathered ; 

 they should then be boiled without delay, and the 

 result, in the judgment of white people who know it, 

 is a dish resembling asparagus in flavor, and rather 

 superior to spinach. Mexicans and Indians have 



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