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SALAD BURNET
Poterium Sanguisorba
Family ROSACEAE
May be found abundantly in dry pastures, especially in a chalky district.
It is a perennial. From its stout rootstock springs a rosette of radical leaves, with ascending or erect annual stems. The leaves are all pinnate; the coarsely-toothed leaflets in pairs, with a terminal leaflet. The stems are slender, branched, and the flowers are gathered into a purplish head.
They have no petals, and are of two kinds; the upper ones have a fourlobed calyx with a narrow mouth, from which two sty]es with brush-like stigmas are projected; the lower bear both stamens and stigmas, or stamens only.
The stamens vary in num ber from twenty to thirty, attached to the mouth of the calyx, and the anthers hang out.
The leaves were formerly much used in the salad-bowl, having a flavour very similar to that of cucumber.
The flowering period is from June to August.
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There are six stamens, the bases of which are highly irritable Salad burnet. Any insect alighting on the stigma can reach the nectar, but it is not easy to do so without touching the base of one of the stamens, which then springs Salad burnet forward and the anthers strike the insect, dusting it with pollen. The insects that set this mechanism in motion are flies, bees and beetles with occasionally a butterfly. The resulting burnet Salad red berries are about half an inch long, of an acid quality, although an excellent preserve is made from them. Flowering from April to June.
One of the burnet Salad commonest weeds in cultivated and waste places, and one need not travel far to find a specimen, for almost any spot of earth that man has tilled will furnish it Salad burnet, though it has a preference for light soils. An alternative name is Pickpocket. The tapering rootstock often reaches to a great depth from which rise the pinnately-cut radical leaves Salad burnet. The smaller leaves high on the stem are arrow-shaped with wavy toothed edges. The flowers are white, very minute, without nectar or scent, and are succeeded by the heart Salad burnet-shaped seed-vessel (capsule) which gives its name to the whole plant, from its resemblance to an ancient form of rustic pouch.
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