SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 19 



formerly candied and sold by confectioners as a 

 sweetmeat; and though they have lost their old 

 renown for their strengthening and stimulating 

 virtues, and no modern poet like those of older 

 days sings their praises, yet there are persons who 

 still sell the candied eryngo roots in London, 

 though they have not so many purchasers as in 

 the days of Queen Elizabeth. There existed till 

 lately, and probably exists still, in the town of 

 Colchester in Essex, an establishment where these 

 roots are prepared, and it was in this very town 

 that these candied comfits first originated. More 

 than two centuries since, an apothecary named 

 Robert Buxton, who had a high idea of their 

 medicinal properties, prepared the root in this 

 way for general use. These plants grow on the 

 sandy soils of Arabia, and the Arabs regard them 

 as an excellent restorative. The use of plants as 

 medicine was known long before men thought of 

 seeking remedies among metallic or mineral drugs, 

 and in Boerhave's time this plant was not only 

 recommended by him, as a tonic, but seems to 

 have been for many years generally so regarded. 

 Linnaeus says that the young flowering shoots are 

 eaten in Sweden, boiled as asparagus, and describes 

 them as a good vegetable. The young shoots of 

 several of our wild plants are equally good for this 

 purpose, and none are better than those of the 

 wild burdock, which may be known by its very 

 large leaves, purple thistle-shaped blossoms, and 

 above all by the spiny flower-cups which children 

 call burrs. It grows by most waysides. 



We have but two species of eryngo, and the other 

 (Eryngium campestre) is rare, though found occa- 

 sionally in sandy fields : it is more bushy and lender 

 c2 



