276 



HORTICULTURE. 



Kitchen 

 .Garden. 



t'emmon 

 WrreL 



VfooA. 

 srre). 



ones must be raised from seed, or offsets procured from 

 young and vigorous plants. If a few stems be allowed 

 to remain in the summer, plenty of seeds may be pro- 

 cured in autumn. 



390. Common Sorrel (R. Acelosa, L.) is a well-known 

 perennial native, growing in meadows and by the sides 

 of rivers , and is figured in " English Botany," t. 1270. 

 The lower leaves have long foot-stalks ; they are ar- 

 row-shaped, blunt, and marked with two or three large 

 teeth at the base : the upper leaves are sessile, and 

 acute. It is easily raised from seeds sown early in the 

 spring. It thrives best in a shady border. The leaves 

 are used, like those of French sorrel, in various soups, 

 sauces, and especially in salads. As formerly mention- 

 ed, they give an excellent flavour- to herb patience, 

 used as a substitute for spinach. This species, it may 

 be remarked, is used in France nearly as much as the 

 other, which we generally call French sorrel. 



There is a third species of sorrel, reckoned by the 

 Parisians more delicate than either of the others. It is 

 the Rumex arifolius of the Flore Franp aise. Its leaves 

 are larger and kss acid ; and it very rarely throws up 

 a flower-stem. 



391. Wood-sorrel is an entirely different kind of 

 plant, (Oxalts Acelosel/a, L. ; Decandria Pentagynia ; 

 belonging to the Gerania of Jussieu.) Having a very 

 grateful acid taste, the leaves form a desirable addition 

 to salads, particularly when young, in the months of 

 March and April. It is to be found in almost every 

 wood : but if the roots be transplanted, in tufts, into 

 the more shady parts of the shrubbery, they will there 

 establish themselves, and be at hand when wanted. 



Corn- Salad. 



Corn-talad. 392. Corn-salad, or Lamb's Lettuce ( Valeriana olitoria, 

 Willd. ; V. Locusta, Lin. ; Tetrandria Monogynia; Dip- 

 sacece, Juss.) is a small annual plant, growing on the 

 margins of our fields, (Eng. Bot. t. 81 l.J and only 2 or 3 

 inches high. Cultivated in gardens, it rises, when in 

 flower, a foot or more in height. The leaves have a 

 pale glaucous hue ; they are long and narrow, the lower 

 ones rather succulent. The flowers are very small, 

 pale bluish, and collected into a close little corymb. 

 In the fields, lamb's-lettuce may be gathered in March, 

 and it flowers in April. In gardens it may be had 

 still more early in the spring ; indeed during the great- 

 er part of a mild winter. The tender leaves are little 

 inferior to those of young lettuce, having a slight 

 agreeable flavour ; they form an excellent ingredient in 

 winter and early spring salads. It has very long been 

 a favourite spring salad-plant in France, under the vari- 

 ous denominations ofmache, doucelte, salade de chanoine, 

 and poule-grasse. Gerarde tells us, that foreigners 

 using it when in England led to its being cultivated in 

 our gardens. The seeds are sown in autumn, generally 

 about the end of August. They are either sown at 

 broad-cast or in drills, on a small bed or border. The 

 plants soon rise, with a low tufl of oblong narrow 

 leaves : they are then thinned out to two or three inch- 

 es asunder : and in February they are fit for use. The 

 entire plntit is drawn, in the manner of lettuce. The 

 younger the plants are when used, the better: in warm 

 dry weather, the leaves soon acquire rather a strong 

 taste, disagreeable to many persons. Sometimes a 

 'small sowing is made in February, which affords plants 

 with fine tender leaves in April and May. A few 

 plants may be allowed to spring up to flower, and they 

 perfect their seeds in July and August. The culture 



of lamb's lettuce, as a salad plant, has for some time 

 past been declining, but without any good reason. 



Milk.Thislle. 



Kitchen 

 Garden. 



393. The Milk-Thistle, or Our La fly's Thistle (Car- Milk-thistlf. 

 duns Marianus, L. ; Syngenesia Polygamia aequalis ; Ci- 

 nnrocephalce, Juss.) is a biennial plant, a native of Bri- 

 tain, ( Eng. Bot. t. 976. ) It is at once distinguished 

 by the beautiful milky veins which form an irregular 

 network on the leaves. Some readers may be sur- 

 prized to find a native thistle ranked among our escu- 

 lent plants ; but it is certainly not more unpromising 

 at first aspect than the artichoke or the cardoon. When 

 very young, it is eaten as a salad ; the tender leaves 

 stripped of their spines, are sometimes boiled and used 

 as greens ; the young stalks peeled, and soaked in wa- 

 ter to extract a part of the bitterness, are said to be ex- 

 cellent ; early in the spring of the second year, the root 

 is pretty good, prepared like salsify or skirret; the re- 

 ceptacle is pulpy, and eats like that of the artichoke. 

 The young plants are sometimes blanched like endive, 

 and used in winter salads : for this purpose the seeds 

 are sown in spring, and the plants are allowed to re- 

 main about a foot and a half distant from each other ; 

 in autumn, the leaves are tied together, and the earth 

 drawn up close to them, till they be whitened. The 

 plant, however, is but rarely cultivated for any culina. 

 ry purpose. 



It grows naturally, or has been naturalized, near all 

 the old castles or strongholds of Scotland, such as the 

 castles of Edinburgh, Stirling and Dunbarton. From 

 this circumstance, and the formidable spines of the 

 calyx, many consider it as the " true Scots thistle," the 

 national badge. But the way -thistle ( Carduns lanceo- 

 latus) is incomparably more common in that country. 

 The Gardeners Lodge of Edinburgh, it may be remark- 

 ed, generally adopts the cotton- thistle (Onopordum acan- 

 thium ) as its emblem ; but apparently without any 

 good reason, that plant existing only in one or two 

 parts of the country. It may be added, that the re- 

 presentations of the Scots thistle, whether carved on 

 ancient buildings, impressed on the coins of the realm, 

 or emblazoned on armorial bearings, as seen in seals or 

 in old engravings, bear equal resemblance to all of 

 these, or, to speak more correctly, are equally unlike 

 any thistle described by Linnaeus, as they are dissimi- 

 lar to each other. 



Burnel, 



394. Burnet (Poterium Sanguisorba, L. ; Moncecia Burnet. 

 Pnlyandria ; Rosacece, Juss. ; petite pimprenelle of the 

 French,) is a perennial plant, growing naturally in 

 some parts of England, in dry upland pastures. It is 

 figured in " English Botany," t. 860. The leaves are 

 pinnated ; they form a tuft next to the root, but are 

 alternate on the stem ; the leaflets are partly round- 

 shaped, partly pointed, and much serrated on the edges. 

 The stem rises fifteen inches high, and the flowers 

 form small greenish or purplish heads. 



Burnet leaves are sometimes put into salads, and oc- 

 casionally into soups; and they form a favourite in- 

 gredient for cool tankards. When slightly bruised, 

 they smell like cucumber, and they have a somewhat 

 warm taste. They continue green through the winter, 

 when many other salad plants are cut off, or in a state 

 unfit for use. The plant is easily raised by sowing the 

 seeds in autumn, soon after they are ripe : or it may 



