Species: Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor)
Family: Roses (ROSACEAE)
Category: Flowering Plants
Location: SW
A. Flowering Plants
More extensive information on flowering plants can be found in a separate blog post.
B. Roses (ROSACEAE)
The Rose family gives us many of our most commercially important fruits, such as the Prunus species. They have alternate leaves and 5-petalled flowers.
C. Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor)
Salad Burnet is a short, edible perennial plant. Its toothed leaves are distinctive. It has a flower cluster of tiny purple-crimson florets, mace-like in shape, that eventually sprout yellow cascading anthers. The plant will live longer if allowed to set seed. It also appears to cope relatively well with drought because it develops tap roots fairly rapidly.
The leaves are, as the name suggests, used in salads, the leaves smelling of cucumber when crushed or walked on.
It is fairly common in England, but the plant photographed here was planted from seeds. The plant is wind-pollinated, anemophily being the name of that process.
Images
Salad Burnet
The toothed leaves of Salad Burnet are distinctive. The leaves are, as the name suggests, used in salads.
Salad Burnet
The yellow anthers of Salad Burnet, mid-May 2023.
Salad Burnet
Salad Burnet's mace-like flower head eventually produces purple flowers.
