Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
In addition, this page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Dwarf Rocket Cress
Description. This is a small plant, with pale leaves, which grow near the bottom; they grow in a thick tuft, without footstalks, but are narrowest at the base, and breadest toward the end; and they are notched at the edges. The stalk is round, upright, and divided into many branches. It is of a pale green colour, and about ten inches high. The flowers stand in great numbers on the tops of the branches, and they are small and white.
Place. It is an annual plant, and grows upon commons, but not commonly. It is found about Putney and Barnes Common.
Time. It flowers in May.
Government and virtues. This cress is under the Moon. All these cresses are justly celebrated for their virtues in curing all the diseases of the urinary passage. The expressed juice, or infusion of the whole plant, is the best way of taking it. They are also very wholesome in spring sallads, or with bread and butter.