The inhabitants of Gothland boil this plant with coarse meal, as food for swine; and the poorer classes of Scania thatch their cottages with it, and also employ it as fuel. In the Hebrides it is customary to dry cheese, without using any salt, by covering it with the ashes of the bladder fucus, which abound in saline particles. This and other sea-weeds serve as a winter food for cattle, which regularly frequent the shores for them at the ebb of the tide: they are also used as manure for land.
A soapy liquor which is found in the bladders of this plant is sometimes externally applied as a medicine for dispersing scrofulous and scorbutic swellings, by simply bruising them in the hand and rubbing them on the parts affected. When this plant is calcined or burnt in the open air, a black and saline powder is produced, which, under the name of vegetable æthiops, has been recommended as a dentrifice, and for other uses.
289. EATABLE WINGED FUCUS, or BLADDERLOCKS (Fucus esculentus), is a simple, undivided, and sword-shaped sea-weed, which is olive-coloured, and sometime several yards in length. Its stem is four-cornered, runs through the whole length of the leaf, and is winged at the base.
This plant, which is very common on some of the shores of Scotland, and also on those of Cornwall, and several parts of North Wales, is a grateful food to cattle; and its stalk, when boiled, constitutes a very favourite dish in Scotland. The proper season for gathering it is the month of September, when it is in higher perfection than at any other time of the year.
290. SWEET FUCUS (Fucus saccharinus) is a simple, undivided, and sword-shaped sea-weed, without any rib, of leathery consistence, and tawny green colour; and frequently five or six feet in length. Its stalk is round and hard.
This plant abounds on all our sea-shores: and, if slightly washed from the sea-water, and dried in the air, it becomes covered with a sweet powdery efflorescence. It is edible either in a raw state, or boiled as a pot-herb. Sometimes it is hung up to serve the purpose of an hygrometer, which it does in some degree by becoming flaccid during a moist state of the atmosphere, and hard in dry weather.
291. DULSE, or RED PALMATE FUCUS (Fucus palmatus), is a flat, membranous, and hand-shaped, sea-weed, of brownish crimson colour, smooth on both sides, and without any mid-rib.
In the markets of Edinburgh, and other parts of Scotland, this plant, which is common on most of the British shores, is exposed for sale as an article of food. After having been washed in fresh water, it is eaten raw, by itself, in salad, or by poor people with other provisions. Sometimes it is boiled and used as a pot-herb. If gradually dried, it gives out a whitish powdery substance, which covers the whole plant, and has a sweet and agreeable taste, somewhat resembling that of violets. In this state it is frequently packed in casks for exportation. Some persons chew it as tobacco. In Scotland it is occasionally used as a medicine, and it is supposed to sweeten the breath and destroy worms.
292. GREEN or EDIBLE LAVER (Ulva lactuca) is a thin, membranous, pellucid, and green vegetable substance, which is found on rocks, stones, and shells, in the sea and salt-water ditches in nearly all parts of Great Britain.
Of late years this plant, stewed with lemon juice, has been introduced to the tables of the luxurious, as a sauce to be eaten with roast meat. Though in a recent state it has a salt and bitterish flavour, and even when thus prepared is not always relished at first, yet by habit most persons become partial to it. The laver which is consumed in London is chiefly prepared in the west of England, and packed in pots in a state ready for the table. Some persons use laver medicinally, and it is esteemed wholesome for scrofulous habits; but it can scarcely be taken in sufficient quantity to do much good, without having too strong an effect on the bowels.