SWEET HERBS 



PARSLEY 



Cbrum petroselvrmm. 

 Carum, from the country Caria in western Asia. 



The common Parsley of the market, prized for the pleasant flavor of 

 its foliage, used in cookery; occasionally runs wild. 



Stem. — Erect, one to three feet. 

 Leaves. — Pinnately compound; leaflets deft and cut. 

 Flowers. — Small, greenish-yellow, borne in compound umbels; calyx- 

 teeth small. 

 Petals. — Five; fruit ovate, ribbed. 



We cultivate the Parsley for its leaves, which are in common use 

 as a garnish for meat dishes. Several garden varieties are grown; 

 the one with curled and crumpled leaves is preferred as being more 

 decorative than the others. The cultivated plant is rarely allowed 

 to bloom, but when it does it produces an umbel of small, yellowish 

 flowers, and, later, rather crowded umbels of flat seeds. 



An old work on gardening, written about 1440, says that Parsley 

 was "much used in all sortes of meates, both boyled, roasted and 

 fryed, stewed, etc., and being green it serveth to lay upon sundry 

 meates. It is also shred and stopped into powdered beefe." The 

 seeds of Parsley were also put into cheese to flavor it, and the 

 anecdote is told that Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with 

 Parsley seeds at a bishop's palace, and liked it so much that 

 ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la- 

 Chapelle. 



The plant was used among the Greeks as a decoration at 

 funerals and to strew upon graves, hence came the saying, "to be 

 in need of Parsley," signifying to be at death's door. This ap- 

 parently made it a plant of ill repute, for Plutarch tells the story 

 of a panic created in a Greek force which was marching against 

 the enemy by the soldiers suddenly meeting some mules laden 

 with Parsley which they looked upon as an evil omen. 



The seeds are so slow of germination that a Devonshire saying 



530 



