Pringlea Antiscorbutica - Uses

Uses

The plant is edible, containing high levels of potassium. Its leaves contain a Vitamin C-rich oil, a fact which, in the days of sailing ships, made it very attractive to British sailors suffering from scurvy, hence the species name, which means "against scurvy" in Latin. It was essential to the diets of the whalers on Kerguelen when pork, beef, or seal meat was used up. In May 1840, botanist J.D. Hooker was the first to make a technical analysis of the plant, and to assign the Latin name. Hooker also reported having eaten some soup that had been made with Kerguelen cabbage, and described the raw leaves as tasting like cress, the boiled leaves as tasting like "stale" (i.e., dried-out) cabbage, and the root as tasting like horseradish.