495. DANDELION. Leontodum Taraxacum.--This is a good salad when blanched in the spring. The French, who eat more vegetables than our country people do, use this in the spring as a common dish: it is similar to endive in taste. 496. DEWBERRY. Rubus caesius.--The dewberry is very apt to be mistaken for the blackberry; but it may be easily distinguished by its fruit being not so large, and being covered with blue bloom similar to that seen on plums: it has a very pleasant taste, and is said to communicate a grateful flavour to red wine when steeped in it. 497. EARTH-NUT. Bunium Bulbocastanum.--The roots are eaten raw, and considered a delicacy here, but thought much more of in Sweden, where they are an article of trade: they are eaten also stewed as chesnuts. 498. ELDER. Sambucus nigra.--The young shoots of elder are boiled with other herbs in the spring and eaten; they are also very good pickled in vinegar. Lightfoot says, in some countries they dye cloth of a brown colour with them. 499. FAT-HEN. Chenopodium viride et album.--These are boiled and eaten as spinach, and are by no means inferior to that vegetable. 500. FUCUS, SWEET. Fucus saccharatus.--This grows upon rocks and stones by the sea-shore. It consists of a long single leaf, having a short roundish foot-stalk, the leaf representing a belt or girdle. This is collected and eaten the same as laver, as are also the two following kinds. 501. FUCUS, PALMATED. Fucus palmatus.--This plant also grows by the sea-side, and has a lobed leaf. 502. FUCUS, FINGERED. Fucus digitatus.--This is also to be found by the sea-side, growing upon rocks and stones; it has long leaves springing in form of fingers when spread. 503. GOOD KING HENRY. Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus.--The leaves and stalk of this plant are much esteemed. The plant was used to be cultivated, but of late years it has been superseded by the great number of other esculent vegetables more productive than this. The young shoots blanched were accounted equal to asparagus, and were made use of in a similar manner. 504. HEATH. Erica vulgaris.--Formerly the young tops are said to have been used alone to brew a kind of ale; and even now, I am informed, the inhabitants of Isla and Jura (two islands on the coast of Scotland) continue to brew a very potable liquor, by mixing two-thirds of the tops of heath with one of malt.--Lightfoot's Fl. Scot. 505. HOPS. Humulus Lupulus.--Independently of the great use of hops in making beer, and for medicinal uses, where the plant grows wild, it affords the neighbours a dainty in the spring months. The young shoots, called hop-tops, when boiled, are equal in flavour to asparagus, and are eagerly sought after for that purpose. 506. LADIES-SMOCK. Cardamine pratensis.--This is good as a salad herb.