Salad Burnet is a perennial grown for its edible leaves

If you have blonde flaxen hair resembling tow you are a “towhead.” But why “tow” head? Tow is a nearly forgotten 14th century Old English word for the golden, coarse fibers of flax. Brown hair gets its own nickname, so brown or black hair are sometimes called brunette, French meaning “little dark-haired girl.” Which brings us to an edible herb with not flaxen gold, but brunette flowers, the Salad Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba). A member of the rose family (Rosaceae), Salad Burnet is a handsome perennial grown for its edible leaves with a nutty, decidedly cucumber flavor.

You can add the leaves to any dish where you want a fresh cucumber taste, such as salads, in vegetable juices, and even some cocktails. Chop the leaves and blend them into cream cheese or add them to an herb butter.

With toothed leaves and a charming, almost fern-like look to this plant, it can blend into a flowerbed or mixed border. Salad Burnet blooms with its namesake, dense brunette flowers borne on spikes rising out of the plant’s rosette of leaves. Because it is so low-growing, the appearance of salad burnet makes it a very decorative herb. At just eight to 10 inches tall, it makes for a nice low-growing border plant.

A hardy perennial, it will grow easily in USDA zones 5-8. Sow seeds indoors several weeks before your last frost and set out transplants after the soil has warmed. You can also easily direct seed right into the garden any time from spring pretty much right up until autumn. Cover the fine seeds lightly with just one-eighth inch of soil or sifted compost. Gently water the seedbed and keep it moist until they germinate in about two to three weeks. Once the plants are a few inches high thin them to about a foot apart. Because you are growing Salad Burnet for its leaves, and not its brunette flowers, you can plant it where a flowering plant might not do as well, such as dappled sunlight. Even though it doesn’t need rich soil, it does need more moisture than many plants, so it does well in wetter parts of the garden. To keep the leaf crop coming you, will need to water weekly if there isn’t rain.

Seeds are widely available from local nurseries or by mail from companies such as Baker Creek Seed Co. (2278 Baker Creek Road, Mansfield, MO 65704 or 417-924-8917 and online at www.rareseeds.com)

For best flavor and less bitterness, pick leaves before the plant has blooms.  The leaves do not dry well, which is why you never find dried Salad Burnet in the spice rack.  You can preserve the flavor of the leaves by putting them in ice cube trays and covering with water, then freezing them.

Salad Burnet spreads by underground stems called rhizomes. You can divide the rhizomes in early spring or fall. Over the centuries Salad Burnet has become resistant to many common garden problems. Once in a while you may see leaf spot disease, especially in wet weather. Remove and destroy all affected leaves.

To save your own seeds let some of the brunette flowers go to seed. Let the seedheads dry on the plant and then carefully shell them for the tiny seeds. Store the seeds in a cool, dry place out of direct light.

Salad Burnet grew in every garden in early Colonial America, not for the cucumber flavor, but as a serious medicine. The plant name for Salad Burnet, sanguisorba, comes Latin meaning “blood stopper.” The second part of its name, Poterium, is from the Greek word for “drinking cup,” because Salad Burnet was added to a cup of wine. In older herbals Salad Burnet is called “Pimpinella sanguisorba,” which today only refers to the lovely, but poisonous scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvenis.  Redheads, not brunettes, causing trouble.