NEN Gallery

Salad Burnet is a strange looking hairless plant that grows to 15-40cm tall. The stems terminate in globular heads of tiny greenish flowers. It has male only flowers on the lower part of the head with many long stamens. These flower first whilst the female and bisexual flowers higher up on the flower head open later and have purple feathery stigmas. This is a device often used by wind pollinating plants to avoid self-fertilization. The rounded, deeply toothed leaflets smell of cucumber when crushed. The plants, as it name suggests, can be eaten in salads. It is common on chalk grasslands and flowers May - August. Picture taken at Old Warden railway cutting, 22nd May 2009.