This plant is also called Spanish Cardoon or Cardoon of Tours. It is a kind of artichoke “which becomes a truly gigantic herbaceous vegetable. The tender stalks of the inner leaves are sometimes blanched and stewed, or used in soups and salads”; but it is much less used in England than on the Continent. Cardoons are said to yield a good yellow dye.
Clary (Salvia Sclarea).
Percely, clarey and eke sage,
And all other herbage.
John Gardener.
“Clary, or more properly Clear-eyes,” which indicates one of its supposed chief virtues plainly enough. Wild Clary was called Oculus Christi, and was even more valued than the garden kind. Clary was once “used for making wine, which resembles Frontignac, and is remarkable for its narcotic qualities.”[39] It was also added to “Ale and Beere in these Northern regions (I think the Netherlands are meant here) to make it the more heady.” The young plant itself was eaten, and an approved way of dressing it was to put it in an omelette “made up with cream, fried in sweet butter” and eaten with sugar and the juice of oranges or lemons. It is now sometimes used to season soups, and Hogg tells us that it was used “in Austria as a perfume; in confectionery, and to the jellies of fruits, it communicates the flavour of pine-apple.” The herbalists speak of a plant called Yellow Clary or “Jupiter’s Distaff,” and Mr Britten suggests that this was Phlomus fruticosa.
[39] Timbs.
Dittander (Lepidium Latifolium).
Dittander or Pepperwort grows wild in a few places in England, but was once cultivated. It was sometimes used as “a sauce or sallet to meate, but is too hot, bitter and strong for everyone’s taste.” These qualities have gained it the names of Poor Man’s Pepper, and from Tusser, Garden Ginger. Culpepper’s opinion is briefly expressed: “Here is another martial herb for you, make much of it.” It is so “hot and fiery sharpe” that it is said to raise a blister on the hand of anyone who holds it for a while, and therefore (on homœopathic principles) it was recommended “to take away marks, scarres... and the marks of burning with fire or Iron.”
Elecampane (Inula Helenium).
Elecampane, the beauteous Helen’s flower,
Mingles among the rest her silver store.