FAMILY
N.O. Chenopodiaceae

SPECIES
Chenopodium Bonus Henricus

DESCRIPTION
It is a dark-green, succulent plant, about 2 feet, high, rising from a stout, fleshy, branching root-stock, with large, thickish, arrow-shaped leaves and tiny yellowish-green flowers in numerous close spikes, 1 to 2 inches long, both terminal and arising from the axils of the leaves. The fruit is bladder-like, containing a single seed.

The leaves used to be boiled in broth, but were principally gathered, when young and tender, and cooked as a pot-herb. In Lincolnshire, they are still eaten in place of spinach. Thirty years ago, this Goosefoot was regularly grown as a vegetable in Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and other eastern counties and was preferred to the Garden Spinach, its flavour being somewhat similar, but less pronounced.

In common with several other closely allied plants, it was sometimes called 'Blite' (from the Greek, bliton, insipid), Evelyn says in his Acetaria, 'it is well-named being insipid enough.' Nevertheless, it is a very wholesome vegetable. If grown on rich soil, the young shoots, when as thick as a lead pencil, may be cut when 5 inches in height, peeled and boiled and eaten as Asparagus. They are gently laxative.

USES
The young leaves, which contain iron, vitamins and minerals, are added to salads, cooked as spinach, or used in casseroles, stuffings and soups. Young, asparagus-like shoots and flowering spikes are also eaten as vegetables but the plant should be avoided in cases of kidney complaint. a leaf poultice helps with sore skin, the root is used in a cough remedy for shee,p, and the seeds in the manufacture of shagreen ( artificially grained leather)