FOOD RESOURCE COLLEGE OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SCIENCES, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
SCORZONERA HISPANICA, BLACK OYSTER PLANT, BLACK SALSIFY, VIPER'S GRASS
Hedrick, U.P. editor. 1919. Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants. Report of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station for the Year 1919 II. Albany, J.B Lyon Company, State Printers. [References Available]
is a plant of central and southern Europe. The slimy, sweetish roots have gained considerably by cultivation. The roots are long, black and tapering and are eaten, boiled or stewed, after soaking in water to extract the bitter taste. This plant was not mentioned by Matthiolus, 1554, but, in 1570, was described as a new plant, called by the Spaniards scurzonera or scorzonera. In 1576, Lobel says the plant was in French, Belgian and English gardens from Spanish seed. Neither Camerarius, 1586, nor Dalechamp, 1587, nor Bauhin, 1596, nor Clusius, 1601, indicates it as a cultivated plant, and Gerarde, 1597, calls it a stranger in England but growing in his garden. In 1612, Le Jardinier Solitaire calls this salsify the best root which can be grown in gardens. The use of the root as a garden vegetable is recorded in England by meager, 1683, and by Ray, 1686. Quintyne, in France, 1690, calls it "one of our chiefest roots." Its cultivation does not, therefore, extend back to the sixteenth century. No varieties are recorded under culture. Black salsify was in American gardens in 1806. It was first known in Spain about the middle of the sixteenth century forits medicinal qualities as a supposed remedy for snake-bite. Black salisfy was introduced into France from Spain about the beginning of the seventeenth century.
