Everything about Conopodium Majus totally explained
Conopodium majus is a small
perennial herb, whose underground part resembles a
chestnut and is sometimes eaten as a wild or cultivated
root vegetable.
The plant has many English names (many of them shared with
Bunium bulbocastanum, a related plant with similar appearance and uses) variously including
kippernut,
cipernut,
arnut,
jarnut,
hawknut,
earth chestnut,
groundnut, and
earthnut. From its popularity with
pigs come the names
pignut,
hognut, and more indirectly
Saint Anthony's nut, for
Anthony the Great or
Anthony of Padua, both
patron saints of
swineherds. (See
groundnut,
earthnut, and
hognut for other plants which share these names.)
The plant is common through much of
Europe and parts of
North Africa. It grows in woods and fields, and is an
indicator of long-established
grassland.
It has a smooth, slender, curving stem, up to 1
m high, much-divided
leaves, and small, white
flowers in many-rayed terminal compound
umbels.
The rounded "nut" (inconsistently described by authorities as a
tuber,
corm, or
root) is similar to a chestnut in its brown colour and its size (up to 25
mm in diameter), and its sweet, aromatic flavour has been compared to that of the chestnut,
hazelnut,
sweet potato, and
Brazil nut. Palatable and nutritious, its eating qualities are widely praised, and it's popular among
wild food foragers, but it remains a minor crop, due in part to its low yields and difficulty of harvest.
Culpepper on pignuts
"A description of them were needless, for every child knows them.
Government and virtues: They are something hot and dry in quality, under the dominion of Venus; they provoke lust exceedingly, and stir up those sports she's mistress of; the seed is excellent good to provoke urine; and so also is the root, but it doesn't perform it so forcibly as the seed doth. The root being dried and beaten into powder, and the powder being made into an electuary, is a singular remedy for spitting and pissing of blood, as the former chesnut was for coughs."
Taken from
Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal
Shakespeare on pignuts
"I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; and I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts"
-
Caliban,
The Tempest by
William ShakespeareFurther Information
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