Salad Burnet, treatment for sunburn and eczema
Salad Burnet, Sanguisorba minor but sometimes labelled Poterium dictyocarpum or Poterium sanguisorba, is also known as Garden Burnet, Small Burnet or just Burnet (although this can cause confusion with Sanguisorba officinalis, the Great Burnet, also often called just Burnet). It’s an evergreen perennial which grows to a height of about 2 feet (60cm). It makes an unusual addition to the salad bowl, especially useful in the winter, and is often recommended for this purpose.
Salad burnet is easy to grow from seed sown in spring or fall, preferring chalky soil but happy enough anywhere reasonably well-drained and out of the shade. The flavor is better on chalk, but it will survive in most good soils. Don’t allow the plant to flower, or the beneficial properties will be reduced. Leaves can be picked for salad or medicinal use all year round, while roots are lifted in fall before the first expected frost date.
If you cut yourself when you have some salad burnet to hand, wash the wound and bandage with some of the leaves to stop the bleeding. A standard infusion is made from 3 handfuls of fresh or 30g (1 ounce) of dried leaves to 570ml (2½ US cups or 1 UK pint) of boiling water, which should be allowed to stand for 3-4 hours before straining. This can be used to treat gout and rheumatism and also as a soothing lotion for sunburn and skin problems such as eczema. A poultice made by mashing up fresh roots with a little hot water (held on with a gauze bandage and refreshed with more hot water whenever it cools) can be used as a topical treatment for muscle and joint pains.
As with all herbs used for medicinal purposes, salad burnet should be grown organically, as its properties will be destroyed or reduced by the presence of foreign chemicals. To find out more about growing organic salad burnet visit the Gardenzone.
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