Caragana-Carthamus (Sturtevant, 1919)

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Sturtevant, Notes on edible plants, 1919 Caragana-Carthamus (Sturtevant, 1919)

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Caragana ambigua

Caragana ambigua Stocks. Leguminosae.

Baluchistan. The flowers are eaten by the Brahmans in Baluchistan, where it is called shinalak.

Caragana arborescens

Caragana arborescens Lam. SIBERIAN PEA TREE.

Siberia. The seeds are of culinary value but are used particularly for feeding poultry.

Cardamine amara

Cardamine amara Linn. Cruciferae. BITTER CRESS.

Europe and northern Asia. Lightfoot says the young leaves are acrid and bitter but do not taste amiss in salads. Johnson says the leaves are often employed by country people in salads, their taste, although pungent and bitter, is not unpleasant.

Cardamine diphylla

Cardamine diphylla Wood. PEPPER-ROOT.

North America. The long, crisp rootstocks taste like water cress. Pursh says they are of a pungent, mustard-like taste and are used by the natives as mustard.

Cardamine glacialis

Cardamine glacialis DC. SCURVY GRASS.

Capt. Cook found this scurvy plant in plenty about the Strait of Magellan in damp places and used it as an antiscorbutic.

Cardamine hirsuta

Cardamine hirsuta Linn. HAIRY CRESS. LAMB'S CRESS. SCURVY GRASS.

Temperate and subtropical regions. Ross calls this the scurvy grass of Tierra del Fuego; it is edible. Lightfoot says the young leaves, in Scotland, make a good salad, and Johns says the leaves and flowers form an agreeable salad. In the United States, Elliott and Dewey both say the common bitter cress is used as a salad.

Cardamine nasturtioides

Cardamine nasturtioides Bert.

Chile. The plant is eaten as a cress.

Cardamine pratensis

Cardamine pratensis Linn. CUCKOO FLOWER. LADY'S SMOCK. MAYFLOWER. MEADOW CRESS.

Temperate zone. This is an insignificant and nearly worthless salad plant, native to the whole of Europe, northern Asia and Arctic America, extending to Vermont and Wisconsin. It has a piquant savor and is used as water cress. It is recorded as cultivated in the vegetable garden in France by Noisette, 1829, and by Vilmorin, 1883, yet, as Decaisne and Naudin remark, but rarely. There is no record of its cultivation in England, but in America it is described by Burr in four varieties, differing in the flowers, and as having become naturalized to a limited extent, a fact which implies a certain cultivation. Its seed is not offered in our catalogs.

Cardamine rotundifolia

Cardamine rotundifolia Michx. ROUND-LEAVED CUCKOO FLOWERS. WATER-CRESS.

Northern America. The leaves, says Gray, "have just the taste of the English water-cress."

Cardamine sarmentosa

Cardamine sarmentosa Forst. f.

Islands of the Pacific. This plant is eaten as a cress in New Caledonia.

Cardiopteris (Peripterygium) lobata

Cardiopteris (Peripterygium) lobata Wall. Olacineae (Cardiopterygaceae).

East Indies. It has oleraceous leaves, edible but almost insipid.

Cardiospermum halicacabum

Cardiospermum halicacabum Linn. Sapindaceae. BALLOON VINE. HEART PEA. WINTER CHERRY.

Tropics. This climbing vine, ornamental on account of its inflated pods, is said by Pickering to be native of subtropical North America and by Black to occur in all tropical countries. In Burma, according to Mason, it is grown in great quantities as a vegetable. In the Moluccas, as Drury states, the leaves are cooked. In equatorial Africa, it is common and the leaves are made into spinach by the natives as Grant observed.

Careya arborea

Careya arborea Roxb. Myrtaceae (Barringtoniaceae). SLOW-MATCH TREE.

East India. The fruit is eaten.

Carica citriformis

Carica citriformis Jacq. f. Passifloreae (Caricaceae).

African Tropics. This plant bears a fruit the size of an orange, eatable but insipid.

Carica microcarpa

Carica microcarpa Jacq.

South America. The plant bears fruit the size of a cherry.

Carica papaya

Carica papaya Linn. MELON TREE. PAPAYA. PAPAW.

American tropics. The papaw tree is indigenous in Brazil, Surinam and the West Indies and from these places has been taken to the Congo. Its transfer to the East Indies may have occurred soon after the discovery of America, for, as early as 1626, seeds were brought from the East Indies to Nepal. Its further distribution to China, Japan and the islands of the Pacific Ocean took place only in the last century. Linschoten says, it came from the East Indies to the Philippines and was taken thence to Goa. In east Florida, it grows well. Of the fruit, Wm. S. Allen of Florida, writes that it is often as large as a melon, yet the best varieties for eating — those having the best flavor — are no larger than a very large pear. The fruit is used extensively in south Florida and Cuba for making tough meat tender. The toughest meat is made tender by putting a few of the leaves or the green fruit of the pawpaw tree into the pot with the meat and boiling. In a few minutes, the meat will cleave from the bones and be as tender as one could wish.

Dr. Morris read before the Maryland Academy of Science a paper by Mr. Lugger in which the fruit is said to attain a weight of 15 pounds, is melon-shaped, and marked as melons are with longitudinally-colored stripes. The fruit may be sliced and pickled. The ripe fruit is eaten with sugar or salt and pepper. The seeds are egg-shaped, strong-flavored and used as a spice. The leaves have the property of making meat wrapped up in them tender. Brandis also says, meat becomes tender by washing it with water impregnated with the milky juice, or by suspending the joint under the tree. Williams says, the Chinese are acquainted with this property and make use of it sometimes to soften the flesh of ancient hens and cocks by hanging the newly-killed birds in the tree, or by feeding them upon the fruit beforehand. The Chinese also eat the leaves. Hemdon says, on the mountains of Peru, the fruit is of the size of a common muskmelon, with a green skin and yellow pulp, which is eaten and is very sweet and of a delicate flavor. Hartt says the mamao, a species of Carica in Brazil, furnishes a large and savory fruit full of seeds. Brandis calls the ripe fruit in India sweet and pleasant, and says the unripe fruit is eaten as a vegetable and preserved. Wilkes says, it is prized by the natives of Fiji, and Gray says the fruit is a favorite esculent of the Sandwich Islanders. The tree bears in a year or 18 months from seed and is cultivated in tropical climates.

Carica posopora

Carica posopora Linn.

Peru and Chile. This species bears yellow, pear-shaped, edible fruit.

Carissa grandiflora

Carissa grandiflora A. DC. Apocynaceae. AMATUNGULA. CARAUNDA. NATAL PLUM.

South Africa. The flavor is subacid and agreeable and the fruit is much prized in Natal for preserving.

Carlina acanthifolia

Carlina acanthifolia All. Compositae. ACANTHUS-LEAVED THISTLE.

Mediterranean region. The receptacle of the flowers may be used like that of an artichoke.

Carlina vulgaris

Carlina vulgaris Linn. CARLINE THISTLE.

Europe and northern Asia. The receptacles of the flowers are used like an artichoke.

Carlotea (Hippeastrum) formosissimum

Carlotea (Hippeastrum) formosissimum Arruda. Family unknown (Amaryllidaceae).

Pernambuco. The tuberous root, abounding with soft and nutritive fecula, has afforded assistance to the people in parts of Brazil, in times of drought.

Carlotea speciosa

Carlotea speciosa Arruda.

Pernambuco. The tuberous roots have found use in Brazil.

Carpodinus acida

Carpodinus acida Sabine. Apocynaceae.

A climbing shrub of Sierra Leone. The fruit has a sharp, acid taste, with some little bitterness, which prevents its being agreeable; it is, however, much liked by the natives.

Carpodinus dulcis

Carpodinus dulcis Sabine. SWEET PISHAMIN.

Sierra Leone. The fruit is yellow externally, in size and appearance resembling a lime. When broken or cut it yields a quantity of sweet, milky juice. The pulp, in which many large seeds are found, is also agreeable and sweet.

Carthamus tinctorius

Carthamus tinctorius Linn. Compositae. FALSE SAFFRON. SAFFLOWER.

Old World; extensively cultivated in India, China and other parts of Asia; also in Egypt, southern Europe and in South America. Under the name of safflower, the flowers are used largely for dyeing. Phillips says the flowers are used in Spain and in the Levant to color foods. The oil from the seeds in India is used for lamps and for culinary purposes, says Drury. In South America, as well as in Jamaica, as Ainslie writes, the flowers are much used for coloring broths and ragouts. They were so used in England in the time of Parkinson. In American seed catalogs, the seed is offered under the name of saffron but the true saffron is the product of a crocus.