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  The plant was used to be cultivated, but of late years it has been superseded by the great number of other esculent vegetables more productive than this.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.

507.  Laver.  Fucus esculentus.—­This is collected by sailors and people along the sea-coasts; is eaten both raw and boiled, and esteemed and excellent antiscorbutic.  The leaves of this Fucus are very sweet, and, when washed and hanged up to dry, will exude a substance like that of sugar.

508.  Maple.  Acer Pseudo-platanus.—­By tapping this tree it yields a liquor not unlike that of the birch-tree, from which the Americans make a sugar, and the Highlanders sometimes an agreeable and wholesome wine.  —­Lightfoot’s Fl.  Scot.

509.  Marsh Marigold.  Caltha palustris.—­The flower-buds, before opening, are picked, and are considered a good substitute for capers.

510.  Meadow-sweet.  Spiraea Filipendula.—­The roots of this, in Sweden, are ground and made into bread.

511.  Milk-thistle.  Carduus marianus.—­The young leaves in the spring, cut close to the root with part of the stalks on, are said to be good boiled.