What is Alexander (herb) fruit?
Alexander (herb) Fruit and Vegetables. Historic. An umbeliferous plant Smyrnium olusatrum related to the carrot, with distinctive green florets. Also known as Horse Parsley or Black Lovage, the stems were used like celery, either raw or boiled, the young shoots and tops boiled, raw or pickled with vinegar, the roots as an alternative to parsnip.
Are Alexanders edible?
Alexanders are an edible wild plant that you can find growing from February to June. Pick the tender young stems and steam them for a unique flavour experience. They taste like a combination of asparagus, celery, and elderflower
What do Alexanders taste like?
Pick the tender young stems and steam them for a unique flavour experience. They taste like a combination of asparagus, celery, and elderflower In early spring Alexanders are the biggest and boldest plants in hedgerows across Britain. If you’re looking for them and they grow in your area then you really can’t miss them.
Where can I find Alexanders?
Alexanders are an edible wild plant that you can find growing from Feburary to June. Pick the tender young stems and steam them for a unique flavour experience. In early spring Alexanders are the biggest and boldest plants in hedgerows across Britain. If you’re looking for them and they grow in your area then you really can’t miss them.
Alexanders were brought by the Romans
Interestingly, alexanders are a type of ancient cultivated food that the Romans brought to Britain. The same goes for ground elder, a notorious weed, and more conventional vegetables and herbs such as radishes, cabbage, rosemary, mint, and coriander (cilantro).
Foraging for Alexanders
In spring hedgerows are bursting with the strong shoots of this tasty wild vegetable. It’s mainly the stems that you’ll want to eat so look for tender off-shoots near the top of the plant. Pick a few from each plant avoiding taking the thick main stem. It’s tougher and not as nice to eat, plus picking it can damage the plant.
Alexanders have a floral flavour
I’m a newbie to eating alexanders so the photos in this piece are of my first try. They have a wonderful scent that reminds me of elderflowers and that carries on to its flavour.
A unique flavour in a hedgerow near you
Other sources say that the taste can be like asparagus, celery or even parsley. I found that they have a similar texture to asparagus. As for flavour, they’re more like earthy celery mixed with elderflower. It’s really unlike anything I’ve tasted before.
Description
Alexanders is a stout biennial growing to 150 centimetres (59 in) high, with a solid stem which becomes hollow and grooved with age. The leaves are bluntly toothed, the segments ternately divided the segments flat, not fleshy.
Habitat
The plant is common on waste ground and field margins, especially near the sea, where it may also be found on cliff paths and near the shore.
Distribution
Alexanders is native to continental Europe and has long been naturalised in Britain and Ireland where it is widely dispersed and - in addition to other disturbed habitats - commonly found on the sites of medieval monastery gardens as a persistent relic of former cultivation.
History
Alexanders is native to the Mediterranean but is able to thrive farther north. It was a highly popular herb during the time of Alexander the Great. The plant was introduced to the British Isles by the Romans, who called it the ‘pot herb of Alexandria.’
Culinary uses
Every part of the plant is edible. The flowers are yellow-green in colour and arranged in umbels, and its fruits are black. It flowers from April to June. Alexanders is intermediate in flavor between celery and parsley. It was once used in many dishes, either blanched, or not, but it has now been replaced by celery.
Appearance
Alexander is a green leek. His hair is blonde. He has sideburns and a ponytail. His outfit is a white collared shirt, a red cloth around his waist, and blue pants. His skin color is green. His nose and eyelids are also green.
Appearances
Personality: Alexander has a loyal and honest heart,He cares for his little sister Elosie and would always do what is best for his country,Monteria.
Trivia
He's voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, well known for voicing such characters as Sasuke from "Naruto" and 16-year-old Ben Tennyson from the "Ben 10" franchise.
Overview
Smyrnium olusatrum, common name alexanders (or alisander) is an edible flowering plant of the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), which grows on waste ground and in hedges around the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal regions of Europe. It was formerly widely grown as a pot herb, but is now appreciated mostly by foragers.
Description
Alexanders is a stout, glabrous (hairless) biennial growing to 150 (sometimes 180) cm tall, with a solid stem up to 22 mm in diameter, which becomes hollow and grooved with age. It has a tuberous tap-root which can be 60 cm long, as well as fibrous lateral roots.
The stem leaves are arranged in a spiral (although the upper cauline ones are often opposite and sometimes in whorls of 3), with an inflated, purple-striped, fleshy petiole that has papery margins …
Taxonomy
Smyrnium olusatrum is in one of the numerous genera that are assigned to the subfamily Apoideae within the carrot family. The Apoideae are characterised by highly divided leaves, a lack of stipules, the compound umbels, the presence of a stylopodium, and fruit with a membranous endocarp and vittae.
It was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in Species Plantarum (p. 262). Its name has remained unchan…
Identification
There are few difficulties in recognising alexanders in northern Europe. Its compound ternate leaves are very distinctive, as are the yellow flowers. Amongst wild plants, it could possibly be confused with hemlock water-dropwort or wild celery but those species have white flowers. A commonly cultivated herb which does resemble it in its dark, shiny foliage is Lovage, but that has more sharply toothed leaves, no latex in the petiole, and a more erect habit.
Distribution
Alexanders is widespread in Britain, where it is frequent in coastal areas in the south, becoming progressively rarer towards the north of Scotland.
It does not occur in Orkney or Shetland. It is a lowland plant, being recorded no higher than 290 m (in Cornwall). Inland, it is often found close to the sites of medieval monastery gardens and other historical places such as castles. In Ire…
Habitat and ecology
In Britain and the more northerly parts of Europe, the main habitat for alexanders is tall grassland, typically on road verges and woodland edges. It favours some soil disturbance initially, but once established it can be so dominant as to suppress most other plants. In the British National Vegetation Classification this habitat is described as a herb-rich type of MG1 false oat-grass community which, under other circumstances, would likely be dominated by cow parsley. A simil…
History
Alexanders is commonly supposed to be the herb described by Dioscorides as Hipposelinum, which the Romans called olusatrum. William Turner, writing in the late 16th century, explained how this was the accepted wisdom of his "masters", Antonius Musa, Fuchsius and Ruellius (referring to their herbals). However, after reading Dioscorides's De Materia Medica he realised that "our [i.e. English] Alexander is not Smyrniū in Dioscorides," because that species had paler leaves than pa…
Uses
Alexanders was once highly valued in northern Europe as an early vegetable: one of the few fresh plants that can be eaten in February or March. In the west of Britain, it had a reputation amongst sailors of "clearing the blood" and curing scurvy, and in Dorset it was known as "helrut", which is possibly a corruption of "heal root". The seeds have also been used as a cure for scurvy.
One 17th century text describes young shoots used in salads or a "vernal pottage" and an early 1…