Edible Plant Species

Sicana odorifera Naud. Cucurbitaceae. COROA. CURUA.
Brazil.
The odor of the fruit is agreeable. The taste is sweet and at first not unpleasant but it soon nauseates. Notwithstanding this, there are some persons, says Correa de Mello, but not many, who eat it.

Sicyomorpha (Peritassa) sp. Celastraceae.
A genus of plants from Peru.
The fruit is said to be edible and is similar in form to a cucumber.

Sicyos angulata Linn. Cucurbitaceae. BUR CUCUMBER.
Eastern United States. In New Zealand, this plant is boiled for greens. In France, it is an inmate of the flower garden.

Sideroxylon australe Benth. & Hook. f. Sapotaceae.
Australia.
The plants yield a tolerably good fruit.

S. dulcificum A. DC. MIRACULOUS BERRY.
Tropical Africa.
The fruit is eaten by the English residents of western Africa to counteract acidity of any article of food or drink, the sweet flavor being retained by the palate for a considerable time.

S. tomentosum Roxb.
East Indies.
The fruit is about the size of a crab and not unlike one, agreeing moreover with the sour, austere taste of that fruit. It is made into pickles, and the natives cook and eat it in their curries.

Silaum flavescens Bernh. Umbelliferae. MEADOW SAXIFRAGE. PEPPER SAXIFRAGE.
Middle Europe.
This species is mentioned by Pliny. It is cooked as an acid potherb.

Silene cucubalus Wibel. Caryophylleae. BLADDER CAMPION.
Europe, north Africa, Himalayan region and naturalized in America.
Johnson says the young shoots resemble green peas in taste and make a very good vegetable for the table when boiled. In 1685, the crops in Minorca having besn nearly destroyed by locusts, this plant afforded support to many of the inhabitants. Pickering says it is used throughout the Levant, the leaves being cooked and eaten.

Siler trilobum Crantz. Umbelliferae.
Orient, middle and south Europe.
The stems are edible and the fruit serves as a condiment. This plant is called on the lower Volga gladich. This is the baltracan described by Barbaro as having the smell of rather musty oranges, its stem single, hollow, thicker than one's finger and more than a "braccio" high; leaf like rape; seed like fennel but larger, pungent, but pleasant to taste and when in season, if broken as far as the soft part, can be eaten without salt. The water in which the leaves are boiled is drunk as wine and is very refreshing.

Silphium laeve (integrifolium, var. laeve) Hook. Compositae. ROSIN-WEED.
North America.
The tuberous roots are eaten by the Indians along the Columbia River.

Silybum marianum Gaertn. Compositae. HOLY THISTLE. MILK THISTLE.
Europe.
This plant was formerly cultivated in gardens in England but has now fallen into disuse. The young leaves were once used in spring salads or boiled as a substitute for spinach. The young stalks, peeled and soaked in water to extract the bitterness, were cooked and eaten much in the manner of sea kale. The roots, when two years old, were used much in the way of salsify, which they resemble, and the receptacle of the flowers was cooked and eaten as an artichoke. Bryant, in his Flora Dietica, says the young shoots in the spring surpass the finest cabbage when boiled as a vegetable. Johnson says the roots were sometimes baked in pies. Lightfoot says, in Scotland, the tender leaves are by some boiled and eaten as garden stuff.

Simmondsia californica (chinensis) Nutt. Euphorbiaceae (Simmondsiaceae).
Southern California.
The ripe fruit is the size of a hazelnut and has a thin, smooth, three-valved husk, which, separating spontaneously, discloses a brown, triangular kernel. This fruit, though edible, can hardly be termed palatable. Its taste is somewhat intermediate between that of the filbert and acorn. It is employed by the Indians as an article of diet and is called by them jojoba.

Sison amomum Linn. Umbelliferae. HONEWORT. STONE PARSLEY.
Europe and Asia Minor.
Lindley says the seeds are pungent and aromatic but have a nauseous smell when fresh. Mueller says they can be used for a condiment.

Sisymbrium (Alliaria) alliaria (petiolata) Scop. Cruciferae. GARLICWORT. SAUCE-ALONE.
This plant, of Europe and adjoining Asia, is the sauce-alone of Gerarde, who says "divers eat the stamped leaves hereof with salt fish, for a sauce, as they do those of ransons." It is the garlicwort of Turner and is eaten with meat, having a strong odor of garlic. According to Neill, when gathered as it approaches the flowering state, if boiled separately and then eaten with boiled mutton, it forms a desirable potherb. In Wales, it is often fried with bacon or herrings and is sometimes eaten as a salad. The Germans call it sasskraut and use it much as a salad in the spring. In England, it is used with lettuce.

S. (DESCURAINIA) canescens (pinnata) Nutt. TANSY MUSTARD.
North and South America.
The seeds are collected by the Indians of California.

S. officinale Scop. BANK CRESS. CRAMBLING ROCKET. HEDGE MUSTARD.
Europe and north Africa.
This European, herb, now naturalized in the United States, is used as greens or spinach in many parts of Britain. Don says the plant smells strongly of garlic and was formerly used in Europe by country people in sauces and salads. Bridgeman, 1832, in his work on American gardening says it is used as an early potherb and has a warm and acrid flavor. Johnson says it is occasionally cultivated as a potherb but is not very palatable.

Sium decumbens Thunb. Umbelliferae. JELLICO.
Japan.
The leaves are eaten in Cochin China.

S. helenianum Hook. f. JELLICO.
St. Helena Islands.
This species is called jellico at St. Helena, where the green stems are sold in the markets for eating raw.

S. latifolium Linn. WATER PARSNIP.
North America and Europe.
The leaves are cooked and eaten in Italy.

S. sisarum Linn. SKIRRET.
Eastern Asia.
This plant is a hardy perennial, usually grown as an annual, a native of China; introduced into Britain before 1548. It is mentioned by Gerarde. The Emperor Tiberius is said to have demanded this sweet and somewhat aromatic root as a tribute from the Germans living on the Rhine. In America, it was seen by Romans at Mobile, Alabama, in 1775. In 1806, it is mentioned among garden products by McMahon. The root is composed of fleshy tubers about the size of the little finger and, formerly more than now, was esteemed when boiled as among the sweetest, whitest and most pleasant of roots. Mclntosh says skirret is much used in French cookery. Skirret seed appears for sale in American catalogs.

This plant seems to have been unknown to the ancients; certainly no mention can be found of an umbellifer with grouped and divergent roots, the peculiarity of skirret alone among European cultivated plants of this order. In the sixteenth century, the name siser was applied to the carrot as well as to skirret: as, by Camerarius, who describes siser, the sisaron of the Greeks, as a skirret; and siser alterum, Italian carota bLanca, German gierlin, Spanish chirivia, French chervy or girolle or carotte blanche, as a carrot; other illustrations of this period and earlier might be given. Fuchsius, 1542, figures skirret, as does also Ruellius, 1550, Tragus, 1552, and many others after this time. Skirret was well known in Europe as a plant of culture at this period. It perhaps came, says De Candolle, from Siberia to Russia and thence into Germany. Skirret is not named by Turner, 1538, but is in 1551. In 1570, the Adversaria gives the English name as scyrret.