Localities. — O n hilly pastures, &c. in a dry calearious soil ; frequent. 
Perennial. — Flowers from April to July. 
Root woody, whitish, penetrating deep into the earth. Stems 
from 6 inches to a foot high, or more, upright, angular, smooth, 
often of a reddish colour, branched, herbaceous, leafy, many- 
flowered. Leaves pinnate, of several pairs of roundish, or egg- 
shaped, deeply serrated, veiny leaflets, with an odd one, all of a 
deep, somewhat glaucous, green, smooth, but not shining, the 
nerves on the under side hairy. Stipulas joined to the base of 
the leafstalks in pairs, sharply cut. Flowers dull purple, in little 
globose heads, the uppermost fertile, the lower sterile, or sometimes 
perfect. Filaments very long, and often red. Styles hair-like, and 
terminated by the tufted stigma, which is bright crimson, and very 
elegant. Fruit (tube of the corolla) 4-cornered, wrinkled. 
The leaves taste and smell like cucumber, and give that flavour 
to salads, for which purpose the young leaves are sometimes used. 
They are also occasionally put into soups, and they form a favourite 
herb for cool tankards. It has been sometimes cultivated in an 
agricultural point of view, especially on a calearious soil, and it is 
stated to prove an excellent winter pasture, when hardly any thing 
else vegetates. The severest frost never injures this plant, and the 
oftener it is fed the thicker are its leaves, which spring constantly 
from its root, and their flat circular spread will prevent the growth 
of weeds. A species of Coccus may be found about the roots of 
Burnet, which was formerly used for dyeing silk and wool a rose 
colour. In Britain it is superseded by the Mexican Cochineal, but 
the Moors are said still to make use of it. 
It is remarked by Mr. Knapp, in his delightful book, “ The Jour- 
nal of a Naturalist,” that this plant possesses, in a remarkable 
degree, the faculty of preserving its verdure, and flourishing amid 
surrounding aridity and exhaustion. “ It is probable,” continues 
Mr. Knapp, “ that this plant, and some others, have the power of 
imbibing that insensible moisture, which arises from the earth even 
in the driest weather, or from the air which passes over them. The 
immense evaporation proceeding from the earth, even in the hottest 
season, supplies the air constantly with moisture; and as every 
square foot of this element can sustain eleven grains of water, an 
abundant provision is made for every demand. We can do little 
more than note these facts : to attempt to reason upon the causes, 
why particular plants are endowed with peculiar faculties, would 
be mere idleness ; yet, in remarking this, we cannot pass over the 
conviction, that the continual escape of moisture from one body, 
and its imbibition by another, this unremitting motion and circu- 
lation of matter, are parts of that wonderful ordination, whereby the 
beneficence and wisdom of Providence are manifested : without the 
agency of evaporation, not dwelling on the infinitude of effects and 
results, no vegetation could exist, no animal life continue.” 
