134 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Piootstock thick, somevvliat fleshy with a woody centre, pro- 

 ducing numerous radical leaves and stems 6 inches to 2 feet high, 

 sometimes quite erect, sometimes almost decumbent. Leaves 

 with 4 to 12 pair of leaflets, which slightly inci'ease in size towards 

 the apex, where they are ^ to f inch long. Stem-leaves with 

 narrower divisions ; their stipules with a semi-lunate deeply 

 incised, herbaceous, free portion. Flower-heads f to f inch long. 

 Calyx-segments oval, spreading, somewhat scarious, dull-purplish, 

 margined with olive. Fructiferous calyx about |- inch long, ovate- 

 ovoid, with 4 rather thin wings and numerous anastomosing 

 veins, pale olive-brown. Achenes blackish, closely invested by the 

 indurated calyx, indistinctly striate. Plant glabrous, except some- 

 times towards the base. Leaves deep-green, often, tinged with 

 reddish, paler and frequently glaucous beneath. 



Common Salad Burnet. 



French, Piniprenelle Sanguisorbe. German, Wieseriknopf. 



The Salad Burnet forms much of the turf on some of the dry chalky downs in our 

 southern counties. It was originally brought into notice by Rocque, a gardener at 

 Waltham Green, near London, who found means to recommend it to the Dublin and 

 other agricultural societies, and succeeded in getting it largely used. It does not appear 

 that the attempt to introduce it into agriculture has permanently succeeded. Its 

 produce is seldom very great, it lasts but a short time, and cattle do not appear to relish 

 it very much, especially when fully giown. It was at one time largely used as a salad 

 plant, and was an ordinary ingredient in " cool tankards." The leaves, when bruised, 

 taste and smell like cucumber, and are very refreshing. The whole herb is slightly 

 astringent, and possesses many of those qualities which are so valuable in vegetable 

 food when eaten in an uncooked state. We may here remark on the desirability of 

 giving encouragement to the consumption of fresh salad-herbs of all sorts, the gi-eater 

 the variety the better ; and although those who live in London have little or no 

 opportunity of extending their vegetable dietary beyond the routine supply introduced 

 into Coveut Garden market, those who are in the country may without expense provide 

 a constant variety of health-giving salad plants for the table. It will appear reasonable 

 to all who care to think on the subject, that green fresh plants contain in their tissues 

 certain salts and other constituents intended by nature to enter into the human system, 

 and adapted for it. By boiling or otherwise cooking these plants, all these valuable 

 substances are lost, unless, indeed, the water in which they are dissolved be drunk with 

 the vegetable, a proceeding which we cannot recommend as palatable. Gerarde says : 

 " The lesser Burnet is pleasant to be eaten in sallads, in which it is thought to make 

 the heart merry and glad, as also being put into wine, to which it yeeldeth a ceitaine 

 grace in the drinking." 



SPECIES XL— POT ERIUM MURICATUM. Spach. 



Plate CGCCXX. 



P. Sanguisorba, var. muricatum, Benth. Handbook Brit. Bot. p. 198. 



P. polygamum, Waldst. und Kit. Koch ? Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv. ed. ii. p. 2J8. 



Stem herbaceous, erect. Leaflets oval or oblong, deeply inciso- 



