[f. prec. from the dark brown color of its flowers.]
1. The popular name of plants belonging to the genera Sanguisorba and Poterium (N.O. Rosaceæ), of which the Great or Common Burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis) is common in meadows, and the Lesser or Salad Burnet (Poterium Sanguisorba) on the Chalk. The old herbalists confounded with these the Burnet Saxifrage Pimpinella Saxifraga, an umbelliferous plant resembling the Burnets in foliage.
[c. 1265. Anglo-Norm. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 557. Burneta, sprungwurt.]
c. 1400. MS. Sloane 2457, f. 6 (Halliw.). Pympurnolle … Englysch y-called is burnet.
c. 1450. Alphita (Anecd. Oxon.), 25. Burnete [uel burnette].
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, C j. The other is named the greate Pympinella or burnet.
1579. Langham, Gard. Health (1633), 109. Bvrnet openeth the stoppings of the liuer … and helpeth the Jaundies.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., V. ii. 49. The euen Meade, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and greene Clouer.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 188. Burnet, called in French Pimprenelle or Pimpernelle, is a very common and ordinary Sallet furniture.
1757. Dyer, Fleece, I. 695. Mix’d with the greens of burnet, mint & thyme.
1796. C. Marshall, Garden., XII. (1813), 264. Burnet is a warm perennial sallad herb, used also in cool tankards.
1882. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, IX. No. 3. 461. By the waysides … the common burnet was growing.
2. Comb., as burnet blood-wort, Sanguisorba officinalis; burnet-buttons, the flower-heads of Burnet; burnet-fly, -moth (Anthrocera or Zygæna filipendulæ), a greenish black moth, with crimson spots on its wings; burnet-rose, the Scotch Rose (Rosa spinosissima); burnet saxifrage, Pimpinella Saxifraga (cf. 1); burnet-sphinx = burnet-moth.
1776. Withering, Bot. Arrangem. (1801), II. 197. *Burnet Blood-wort, a hard woody plant with winged leaves and a 4-cleft blossom.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 124. On the pismire’s castle hill While the *burnet-buttons quak’d.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 1 June, 5/1. A good *burnett fly, and some harelips hovering overhead.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXII. 345/2. The six-spotted *Burnet moth (Anthrocera Filipendulæ) … has six red spots on the superior wings.
1884. Worsley-Benison, in Evang. Mag., June, 251. The little *Burnet-Rose of our chalk-hills and sandy shores … has white flowers.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. iv. § 4. *Burnet saxifrage.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., v. 57. Most of them have their little flowers white as … burnet-saxifrage.
1870. J. Clifford, in Eng. Mech., 21 Jan., 449/3. In February … the caterpillars of the Six Spotted *Burnet Sphinx (Zygæna Filipendulæ).
