1204 POTERIUM. [CLASS XXI, ORDER VII, 
GENUS XIX. POTE'RIUM.—Liyy. Salad-Burnet. 
Nat. Ord. Rosa'cex. Juss. 
Gen. CHar. Flowers collected into dense heads, with three or four 
scaly bracteas at the base of each. Barren flowers with a four- 
cleft perianth. Stamens thirty to forty, with long slender 
filaments. Fertile flowers with a tubular perianth, contracted at 
the mouth, with four deciduous teeth. Styles two, filiform. 
Stigmas tufted. Fruit two, one seeded, nuts invested with the 
hardened four angled tube of the perianthName from 
poterium, a drinking cup; said to be so called from the plant 
being used as one of the ingredients in the drink called Cool- 
tankard. 
1 P. Sanguisor'bia, Linn. (Fig. 1460.) Common Salad-Burnet. 
Herbaceous; stem somewhat angular; fruit hardened, reticulated, 
quadrangular. 
English Botany, t. 860.—English Flora, vol. iv. p. 147.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 8348.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 103. 
Root woody. Stem herbaceous, erect, branched, angular, striated, 
smooth above, downy below, leafy, from one to two feet high. Leaves 
pinnated, with several pairs of roundish ovate neatly and deeply 
serrated leaflets, and an odd terminal one, a deep somewhat glaucous 
green above, paler beneath. Stipules in pairs at the base of the leaf, 
deeply cut, rather small. Inflorescence terminal globose heads of 
crowded flowers, the upper ones fertile, with a tubular perianth, con- 
tracted at the mouth, the limb of four spreading obtuse teeth, the 
style long, filiform, terminating in a tufted stigma, purple, barren 
flowers below, with a four-cleft perianth, having a very short tube, the 
stamens crimson, numerous, with long filaments and ovate yellow 
anthers, of two cells. Fruit one or two nuts, closely invested with the 
persistent tube of the perianth, which becomes hardened, angular, 
and reticulated. 
Habitat—Dry hills and pastures; common. 
Perennial ; flowering in June and July. 
The common Burnet has been cultivated for fodder in dry chalky 
lands ; but since Saintfoil has become more known, it, from its pro- 
ducing a greater abundance of fodder has superseded it. The leaves 
have the smell and somewhat the taste of cucumber, for which reason 
it often forms a part of the ingredients of a spring salad, and is com- 
monly cultivated for that purpose in many parts of the Continent. The 
famous old English drink, called Cool-tankard, owed fart of its 
flavour and virtue to this plant, and on this account it is said to have 
been called Poterium. The properties of this plant are similar to 
that of Sanguisorbia officinalis, vol. i. p. 208, for which it is in 
differently cultivated and used. 
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