Page:The family kitchen gardener - containing plain and accurate descriptions of all the different species and varieties of culinary vegetables (IA familykitchengar56buis).pdf/145

 are put into salads as an ornament. In England it is now nearly neglected, but the flowers and upper leaves are sometimes used as an ingredient in that Summer beverage composed of wine, water, lemon juice, and sugar, called a cool tankard, to which they seem to give an additional coolness.

A of many countries in the northern parts of Europe. It is biennial, and propagated by sowing the seeds in Spring. The seeds of this plant are well known to have a pleasant, spicy smell, and a warm, aromatic taste; and on that account they are much used as a common ingredient in cakes, and are encrusted in sugar for comfits; they are also distilled with spirituous liquors, to improve their flavor. The tender leaves in Spring are sometimes boiled in soups.

wild in many parts of Europe. It is a hardy perennial, and easily propagated by parting the roots early in Spring. Both the leaves and flowers of the Chamomile have a strong, though not ungrateful, smell, and a very bitter, nauseous taste. The flowers possess the stomachic and tonic qualities usually ascribed to simple bitters. A watery infusion of them is frequently used for the purpose of exciting vomiting, or for promoting the operation of emetics. They are very generally used in emollient decoctions, to assuage pain; and externally as fomentations.