Home /Early purple orchis, Orchis maculata

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Early purple orchis, Orchis maculata

early purple orchidorchidThe root can be eaten cooked. It is a source of 'salep', a fine white to yellowish-white powder that is obtained by drying the tuber and grinding it into a powder.

Salep is a starch-like substance with a sweetish taste and a faint somewhat unpleasant smell. It is said to be very nutritious and is made into a drink or can be added to cereals and used in making bread etc.

One ounce of salep is said to be enough to sustain a person for a day.

Salep is very nutritive, astringent, expectorant and demulcent. It has been used as a diet of special value for children and convalescents, being boiled with water, flavoured and prepared in the same way as arrowroot.

Rich in mucilage, it forms a soothing and demulcent jelly that is used in the treatment of irritations of the gastro-intestinal canal.

One part of salep to fifty parts of water is sufficient to make a jelly.

The tuber, from which salep is prepared, should be harvested as the plant dies down after flowering and setting seed.

As this orchid is a rare and protected species, never take bulbs from wild plants. Some of the seed could be taken to sow new plants. Click here for more on cultivation.