17. Corn-sallet, valerianella; loos'ning and refreshing: The Tops and Leaves are a Sallet of themselves, seasonably eaten with other Salleting, the whole Winter long, and early Spring: The French call them Salad de Preter, for their being generally eaten in Lent.
"Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets"
John Evelyn
It grows wild in the banks of hedges and waste cornfields, and is cultivated in our kitchen gardens as a salad herb, the Milk Grass, being called botanically the valerianella olitoria, and having been in request as a spring medicine among country folk in former days.
"Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure"
William Thomas Fernie