SANGUISORBA

Once, while wandering over the chalk downs of Box Hill in Surrey, I noticed the delicate scent of cucumber. On inspection of the ground beneath my feet I discovered I was standing on a diminutive pinnate-leaved plant that had small, globular, greenish-red heads with long straggly stamens: the salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor). This was my first encounter with one of the two British native burnets, the other, the great burnet (), preferring moisture-retentive soils in meadows or at the edge of woodland. It is much taller at 1.2m with small, burgundy bobbles atop wiry stems.