Flora Scotica
Common stinging nettle – “nettle-tops in the Spring are often boil’d and eaten by the common people instead of cabbage-greens” “In Arran and other islands, a rennet is made of a strong decoction of nettles: a quart of salt is put into three pints of the decoction, and bottled up for use. A common spoonful of this liquor will coagulate a large bowl of milk very readily and agreeably, as we saw and experienced.”
Scots Pine – “At loch-broom, in Ross Shire, we observed that the fishermen made ropes from the inner bark but hard necessity has taught the inhabitants of Sweden, Lapland and Kamschatka, to convert the same into bread. To effect this they, in the Spring season, make choice the tallest and fairest trees, then stripping off carefully the outer bark, they collect the soft, white succulent interior bark, and dry it in the shade. When they have occasion to use it, they first toast it at the fire, then grind, and, after steeping the flour in warm water, to take off the resinous taste, they make it into thin cakes, which are baked for use. On this strange food the poor inhabitants are sometimes constrain’d to live for a whole year; and, we are told, thro’ custom, become at last even fond of it.”
Common White Willow – “The inner bark has afforded a miserable substitute for bread to the necessitous inhabitants of Camtsabatka.” “In the Summer season the leaves have been observ’d to distil a clear liquor, which Scopoli affirms to be owing to the liquefaction of the spume which envelops an insect called Cicada Spumaria.”
Black-bearied heath, crow, or crake-berries – “The Highlanders frequently eat the berries, but they are no very desirable fruit. If taken too copiously they are reported sometimes to bring on a slight head-ache.”
Gale, Goule, sweet willow or dutch myrtle – “In Uist and other of the western isles, and in Glenald, and other places of the Highland continent, it is sometimes used instead of hops for brewing beer.” “In Isla and Jura the inhabitants garnish their dishes with it, and lay it between theur linen and other garments, to give a fine scent, and to drive away moths.”
Hops – “The young shoots boil’d, and eaten in the Spring, like asparagus, are by many reckoned a delicacy.”
Black poplar – “The inhabitants of Camtschatca are sometimes reduced to the necessity of converting the inner bark into bread.”
Common Male fern: Filix Mas – polypodium frondibus bipinnatis – “Gunner relates, in his Flor. Norveg, that the yound curled leaves, at their first appearance out of the ground, are by some boiled and eaten like asparagus; and that the poorer Norwegians cut off those succulent laminae, like the nails of the finger at the crown of the root, which are the bases of the future stalks, and brew them into beer, adding thereto a third portion of malt, and in times of great scarcity mix the same in their bread.”
Edible Iceland Lichen – Eryngo-leav’d Lichen – “THe L. Islandicus is used both for food and physic. The inhabitants of Iceland take a decoction of the fresh leaves in water, in the Spring season, to purge away noxious humours, which is said to operate powerfully. But, when dry’d, the plant acquires a very different quality. The same people then grind it to powder, and eat it as common food, boiling it either in milk or water, or making it into bread.”
Lungwort Lichen – Hazleraw – “The Lichen has an astringent bitter taste, and according to Gmelin, is boiled in ale in Siberia, instead of hops. The ancients used it to cure coughs, asthmas, and other disorders of the lungs, but it is out of modern practice.
Bladder Fucus or Common Sea Wrack – In Jura, and some of the Hebrides, the inhabitants dry their cheeses without salt, by covering them with the ashes of this plant; which abounds with such quantity of salts, that from five ounces of the ashes may be produced two ounces and a half of fixed alkaline salts, that is half of their whole weight.
Dulse – The inhabitants both of Scotland and Ireland take pleasure in eating this plant: sometimes they feed upon it like a salad, when fresh taken out of the sea; but the more usual method is first to dry it, then roil it up together, and chew it like a plug of tobacco. And this they do more for the pleasure arising from habit, than from any supposed virtues in the plant itself.
Eatable focus or Badderlocks – This focus is eaten in the north both by men and cattle. Its proper season is in the month of September, when it is in greatest perfection. The membranous part is rejected, and the stalk only is eaten. It is recommended in the disorder call’d a pica, to strengthen the stomach and restore the appetite.
Sweet focus or sea-belt – The inhabitants of Iceland make a kind of potage with this Focus, boiling it in milk and eating it with a spoon.
They also soak it in fresh water, dry it in the sun and then lay it up in wooden vessels, where in a short time it is covered with a white efflorescence of sea-salt, which has a sweet taste like sugar. This they eat with butter,, but if taken in too great a quantity, the salt is apt to irritate the bowels, an bring on a purging.
It is sometimes eaten by the common people on the coast of England, being boil’d as a pot-herb.
Ciliated or ligulated focus – This focus is eaten by the Scotch and Irish, promiscuously with the F. Palmatus or dulse.
Pepper dulse – This focus has a hot taste in the mouth, and is therefore called pepper dulse by the people of Scotland, who frequently eat it as a salad, in the same manner as they do the F. palmatus.
Sloke or slake or navel laver – The inhabitants of the Western Isles gather it in the month of march, and after pounding and stewing it with a little water, eat it with pepper, vinegar and butter. Others stew it with leeks or onions.
In England it is generally pickled with salt, and preserved in jars; and when brought to table is stew’d, and eaten with oil and lemon-juice.
Lettuce laver or oyster green or green sloke – The oyster-green is eaten in the same manner as the ULVA umbilicalis both in England and Scotland, bu the last if the two is generally preferr’d, where both are found.
Daucus – curan – The Highlanders frequently eat the roots of the wild carrot, and esteem them wholesome and nutritive.
Meum. Athamanta – the highlanders are fond of chewing the root of this plant. It has a warm aromatic taste, and is esteem’d a good carminative.
Vitis idaea vaccinium – lingonberry/ mountain cranberry, cowberry– the berries are eaten by the Highlanders, and reckoned wholesome and cooling.
Chanterelle – It has a pleasant smell, something like a ripe plumb, and when properly stew’d, a savoury taste, otherwise tough and subacrid.
Milky agric – this is reputed to be one of the best kinds for the table, though never, I believe eaten in England.
Common Brooklime – beccabunga V. racemis lateralibus – It is esteem’d an antiscorbutic; and is eaten by some in the Spring as a sallat, but is more bitter and not so agreeable to the palate as Watercresses.
Common butterwort – The inhabitatnts of Lapland, and the North of Sweden, give to milk the consistence of cream, by pouring it warm from the cow upon the leaves of this plant, and then instantly straining it, and laying it aside for two or three days ‘till it acquires a degree of acidicty. This milk they are extremely fond of; and when once made they need not repeat the use of the leaves as above, for a spoonful, or less of it, will turn another quantity of warm milk, and make it like the first, and so on as often as they please to renew their food.
Valeriana locusta floribus triandris – corn sallet
The radical leaves in the Spring are well known as sallet.
fluitans s festuca panicula ramosa erecta – Flote fescue grass
The seeds of this grass are in Poland and Germany brought to the tables of the great, as an agreeable and nourishing food, under the name of Manna Seeds
Yellow Ladies Bedstraw – In Arran, and some of the Western Islands, the inhabitants make a strong decoction of this herb, and use it as a runnet to curdle milk
Dwarf honeysuckle – Lus-a-chraois – plant of gluttony
the berries have a sweed waterish taste, and are supposed by the highlanders to create a great appetite, whence the Erse name of the plant.
Quandrifted bearded gentian – lus-a’-chrubain
All these three gentians (lesser century and autumnal gentian or fellwort) are esteem’d to be good stomachic bitters, and are recommended in the ague, and to strengthen the stomach. Linnaeus informs us that the poor people in Sweden use this last species instead of hops to brew their ale with.
Sea Holly or Eryngo – The young tender shoots, when blanched, may be eaten like asparagus.
Wild Carrot or Bird’s-Nest – The seeds are a powerful diuretic: an infusion of them in ale or in water as a tea have been found to give relief in the gravel. The garden carrot differs from this only by culture
Earth-nut or pig-nut – Many persons are fond of them, and in some parts of England they boil them in broth, and serve them up to table.
Common Spignel, Meu or Bawd-money – The root has a warm spicy taste, and is sometimes used in medicine as a carminative and diuretic.
Samphire – The leaves of this plant are used in England as a well-known pickle, of a warm aromatic flavor.
Cow Parsley – The inhabitants of Camtschatca, about the beginning of July, collect the footstalks of the radical leaves of this plant, and after peeling off the rind, dry them separately in the Sun, and then tying them in bundles they lay them up carefully in the shade: in a short time afterwards these dry’d stalks are cover’d over with a yellow saccharine efflorescence, tasting like liquorice, and in this state they are eaten as a great delicacy.
The Russians, not content with eating the stalks thus prepar’d, contrive to get a very intoxicating spirit from them, by first fermenting them in water with the greater Billberries (Vaccinium uliginosum) and then distilling the liquor to what degree of strength they please, which Gmelin says is more agreeable to the taste than spirits made from corn. This may therefore prove a good succedaneum for whisky, and prevent the consumption of too much barley, which ought to be apply’d to better purposes.
Scotch parsley or lovage – (On skie)… it is call’d by the name of shunis, and is sometimes eaten raw as a salad, or boil’d as greens.
Caraway – The young leaves are good in soups, and the roots are by some esteem’d a delicate food.
Common Sorrel – The Laplanders boil a large quantity of the leaves in water, and mix the juice, when cold, in the milk of their rein-deers, which they esteem an agreeable and wholesome food, and which will keep in a cool place for a long while.
Rosebay willow herb – An infusion of the leaves of this plant has an intoxicating quality, as the inhabitants of Camtschatsca have learnt, who likewise eat the white young shoots, which creep under the ground, and brew a sort of ale from the dry’d pith of it.
Black-whorts, whortle-berries or billberries – The Highlanders frequently eat them in milk, which is a cooling agreeable food, and sometimes they make them into tarts and jellies, which last they mix with whiskey to give it a relish to strangers.
Red whortle-berries – The berries have an acidm cooling quality, useful to quench the thirst in fevers. The Swedes are very fond of them made into the form of a rob or jelly, which they eat with their meat as an agreeable acid, proper to correct the animal alcali.
Fine-leav’d Heath or Hather – Formerly the young tops are said to have been used alone to brew a kind of ale, and even now I was inform’d that the inhabitants of Isla and Jura still continue to brew a very potable liquor by mixing two-thirds of the tops of hather to one third of malt.
Yellow reflex’d stonecrop – The leaves are semicylindrical, glaucous, succulent and acuminated: in Holland sometimes eaten in sallads.
Wood Sorrel – The whole plant has an agreeable acid taste, and cooling quality, and is recommended in malignant fevers, and for the scurvy.
Blackthorn / sloes – The fruit will make a very grateful and fragrant wine.
The quicken-tree or mountain ash or roan-tree
In the island of Jura they use the juice of them as an acid for punch: birds of the thrush kind are very fond of them, and the highlanders often eat them when thoroughly ripe, and in some places distil a very good spirit from them.
Crab apple – The fruit, mixed with other cultivated apples, or even alone, if thoroughly ripe, will make a sound masculine cyder.
Dropwort – Linnaeus informs us, that in a scarcity of corn they have been eaten by men instead of bread.
Briar rose, red flowered dog rose – The pulp of the fruit separated from the seeds, and mixed with wine and sugar, makes a jelly much esteem’d in some countries.
Raspberry bush – In the isle of skye the juice or a syrup of the fruit is frequently used as an agreeable acid for making of punch, instead of oranges or lemons. A distill’d water from the fruit is cooling; and very beneficial in fevers.
Bramble – The juice of the berries, fermented will make a tolerably good wine.
Stone Bramble or Roebuck berries – they are very acid alone, but eaten with sugar they make an agreeable desert, and are esteem’d antiscorbutic. The Russians ferment them with honey, and extract a potent spirit from them.
Cloudberries – The Laplanders bruise and eat them as a delicious food in the milk of the rein deer; and to preserve them through the winter, they bury them in snow, and at the return of spring find them as fresh and good as when first gathered.
In the highlands of Scotland we saw them produced at table as a desert.
Silverweed –
The roots taste like parsneps, and are frequently eaten by the common people in Scotland, either roast or boiled.
In the islands of Tirey and Col they are much esteemed, as answering in some measure the purposes of bread, they have been known to support the inhabitants for months together, during the scarcity of other provisions. They put a yoke on their ploughs, and often tear up their pasture grounds, with a view to eradicate the roots for their use; and as they abound most in barren and impoverish’d soils, and in seasons that succeed the worst for other crops, they never fail to afford a most seasonable relief to the inhabitants in times of the greatest scarcity. A singular instance this of the bounty of providence to these islands!
Bulbous Crowfoot or buttercups -The whole plant is extremely acrid and corrosive, especially the fresh roots, which will readily raise a blister, and as safely as cantharides; and yet notwithstanding this corrosive quality; the roots when boiled become so mild as to be eatable.
Marsh marigold – The plant has an acrid quality, but the young flower-buds in some parts of Germany are pickled and sold for capers.
Water mint – this plant is aromatic, and has a bitter acrid taste
Pennyroyal – an infusion of the plant in white-wine with steel is esteem’d an excellent emmenagogue
Clown’s all heal – it has a foetid smell and bitter taste, and is reckon’d a good vulnerary. Swines are fond of the roots which are sweet, and in times of necessity they have been eaten by men, either boiled, or dry’d, and made into bread.
Dittander or pepperwort – the young leaves are eaten sometimes in sallads
Water-cresses – the young leaves are well known to furnish an agreeable sallad..
Rocket – the young leaves in spring are sometimes eaten in salads, but to most people they have a bitter unpleasant taste
Sea colewort – the young leaves cover’d up with snad and blanch’d while growing, are boiled and eaten as a great delicacy
Marshmallow – The root will turn water to a jelly
Common Broom – The flower buds are in some countries pickled and eaten as capers, and the seeds have made a bad substitute for coffee
orobus foliis pinnatis lanceolatis - Wood pease or heath-pease – corr, cor-meille
The Highlanders have a great esteem fro the tubercles of the roots of this plant; they dry and chew them in general to give better reliesh to their liquor; they also affirm them to be good against most disorders of the thorax, and that by the use of them they are enabled to repel hunger and thirst for a long time. In Breadalbane and Rossshire they sometimes bruise and steep them in water and make an agreeable fermented liquor with them. They have a sweet taste, something like the roots of liquorice, and when boiled, we are told, are well flavour’d and nutritive, and in times of scarcity have serv’d as a substitute for bread.
Wild liquorice or liquorice vetch – The leaves have a sweetish taste, mix’d with bitterness. An infusion of them has by some been recommended in suppressions of urine, and for the gravel.
Purple trefoil or clover – In Ireland the poor people, in scarcity of corn, make a kind of bread of the dry’d flowers of this and the preceding plant reduced to powder. They call the plant Chamroch, and esteem the bread made of it to be very wholesome and nutritive.
Yellow goat’s beard – Tragopogon calycibus corollae radium aequantibus –
The roots are esculent, being boil’d and serv’d up to table in the manner of asparagus. The spring shoots are also eaten by some in the same manner. But what is cultivated in gardens for culinary purposes is generally another species, the Tragopogon porrifolium lin. Commonly called by gardeners salsify.
Common sow-thistle –
The young tender leaves of sow-thistle are in some countries boil’d and eaten as greens.
Dandelion – The young leaves in the spring, when blanch’d and tender, are admired by many as a sallad.
Burdock – This plant, tho’ generally neglected, is capable of being apply’d to many uses, -- the root and stalks are esculent and nutritive: the stalks for this purpose should be cut before the plant flowers, the rind peel’d off, and then boil’d and serv’d up in the manner of cardoons, or eaten raw as a sallad with oil and vinegar.
Common tansy – It has a bitter taste and aromatic smell. It is esteemed good to warm and strengthen the stomach, for which reason the young leaves in the spring have receiv’d a place among the culinary herbs, their juice being an ingredient in puddings, tansies, and other dainties.
Common wormwood – The salt of it, or indeed any other alkali put into sour beer, instantly cures its acidity.
Mugwort – The leaves when young and tender are frequently made use of by the highlanders as a pot-herb
Common daisie – the taste of the leaves is somewhat acid, and, in scarcity of garden-stuff, they have in some countries been substituted as a pot-herb.
Yarrow – Linneaus informs us, that the inhabitants of dalekarlia, in Sweden, mix it with their ale instead of hops, and that gives the liquor an intoxicating quality.
Wake robin or cuckow-pint
The whole plant is extremely acrimonious to the taste, inflaming the mouth for a long time afterwards; but the roots when boil’d or dry’d lose all their acrimony, and become perfectly insipid, and being of a farinaceous quality, have sometimes been made into bread and starch.
Great cattail or reedmace – The roots have sometimes been eaten in sallads
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