COMMON STAR OF BETHLEHEM, DOVE'S DUNG ORNITHOGALUM UMBELLATUM J. C. N .
WILLIS
plant was proposed for preservation on road verges leading to Redgrave Fen at a meeting on 3rd December. To me it seems hardly to need preservation in one particular spot, when it is so frequent on all road sides and pasture along the Waveney on both sides from Great Yarmouth to Redgrave and then after an interval appears at Lakenheath near the Little Ouse. THIS
A distribution map I made from our records shows it as sporadic throughout East Suffolk and most of West Suffolk. It is also widely distributed in Norfolk. Botanical authorities consider it as probably indigenous to East Anglia, though introduced elsewhere. It is to be noted that it is most frequent along our rivers and estuaries flowing into the North Sea and that it is a common plant also on the other side of the Sea. This does suggest that like the Fritillary of whose distribution Mr. Simpson wrote in Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. Vol. 13, pt. 4— that at a time when this Sea floor was dry land and a huge River Rhine flowed out to sea northwards of the British Isles as they are now this plant was common throughout the great Rhine basin. Our rivers were then tributaries of an old Thames which ran past our coasts to join the great Rhine. If it is mere speculation that Star of Bethlehem had come as far north as this by then from the Mediterranean countries and the Near East, what is known is that for many centuries past people in this country have been transferring the wild plant from pastures and rough ground to their gardens—not for the beauty of an early spring flower but to have it handy for the kitchen—they in fact ate the bulbs. Gerard (1596) teils us they were doing this in his day and quotes Dioscurides, physician to Cleopatra, as saying that the roots (i.e., bulbs) are eaten raw or boiled or roasted. Anne Pratt (1855) quotes this and adds that this vegetable is rather nasty and sticky. But Parkinson (1567-1650) the last of our old English herbalists describes it as being "sweeter in taste than any chestnut and serving as well for a necessary need as for delight." Anne must have been a poor cook.