Garden Burnet

Sanguisorba minor

COMMON NAMES

• Garden Burnet
• Salad Burnet

Garden burnet - a perennial herb with slender stems growing 10 - 30 inches tall and arising from a basal rosette of pinnately divided leaves. The toothed leaflets are oval and gray-green. The light green to yellowish-green flowers (May-July) grow in clusters; the female flowers on the upper part have protruding red stigmas that give the herb a red glow. The male flowers on the lower part have drooping yellow stamens.

On the night before a battle, soldiers fighting in the American Revolution dosed themselves with a tea made from garden burnet on the theory that if they suffered a wound in battle the next day, the garden burnet in their systems would keep them from bleeding to death. The plant's Latin name, Sanguisorba, translates loosely as "blood absorber."

In addition to its long traditional employment in checking the flow of blood, garden burnet has also been specified as a treatment for diarrhea and digestive disorders. In the 16th century garden burnet served the population of England as a remedy for rheumatism and gout, and in the 17th century garden burnet was recommended as a protection against the plague and other infectious diseases.

French and Italian cooks value the herb for its cucumber like flavor and add the leaves to salads. The leaves have also been used in vinegars, cream cheeses, herbed butters, and iced drinks. Garden burnet's culinary uses are shared with its close relative greater burnet (S. officinalis), and both herbs are frequently known as salad burnet.

PARTS USED

Aerial parts.

USES

Garden burnet was traditionally used to stanch the flow of blood, but today garden burnet is primarily enjoyed as a culinary herb in salads, vinegars, cheese, and butter. Scientists have not investigated the herb for its medicinal effects and so cannot confirm or refute claims made for it.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION

Native to Eurasia, garden burnet was introduced into North America and has been naturalized in scattered locations from Nova Scotia to Ontario, south to Virginia and Tennessee.

COMMENTS