Recipes starting with W

The tree grows to a height of 40 or 60 feet, with a large spreading top, and thick, massive stem. One accurately measured by Professor du Breuil, in Normandy, was upwards of 23 feet in circumference; and in some parts of France there are Walnut trees 300 years old, with stems of much greater thickness. In the southern parts of England the trees grow vigorously and bear abundantly, when not injured by late frosts in spring.

The flowers of separate sexes are borne upon the same tree and appear in early spring before the leaves. The male flowers have a calyx of five or six scales, surrounding from eighteen to thirty-six stamens; whilst the calyx of the female flowers closely envelops the ovary, which bears two or three fleshy stigmas. The deciduous leaves are pinnate.

An annual, largely hairless grass, producing a spike (flowering and fruiting part) on each of its 1–5 culms (stems). Height is variable, from about 1.2–1.5 m for 1930s cultivars to about 85 cm for most modern cultivars, with a simultaneous strengthening of the culm so as to bear the increased weight (resulting from the increased grain yield) of the spike. This has been achieved by incorporating dwarfing genes, from Japanese cultivar Norin 10, into most modern (post 1960s) varieties.

The shorter height of modern cultivars enables them to be grown with fertiliser and irrigation; otherwise they would grow too tall and fall over (lodging).

Culms (stems): Hollow with hairless or hairy nodes. Each culm bearing around six leaves with blades up to 20 mm wide and up to 35 cm long. The position of the uppermost ‘flag leaf’ blade (upright, semi-nodding or nodding) is an important character as it plays a leading role in the metabolic assimilation rate and hence productivity of the plant.

Spikes (flowering and fruiting parts): Up to 15 cm long, almost square in cross-section, with 2–5 rudimentary spikelets (clustered units of flowers and bracts) at the base of 10–25 fertile spikelets (of which the number and density in the spike varies greatly among cultivars).

Glumes (empty bracts that enclose the spikelet) are keeled in the upper half, the keel extending into a tooth. Lemmas (bracts) are toothed or awned; when awned these increasing in length up to around 13 cm near the apex of the spike. Truly awnless bread wheat cultivars do not exist as there is always at least a short awn on some of the lemmas.

Seeds: Typically an average of two per spikelet (but significant variation has been recorded), oval in shape with a central groove on the ventral surface and a terminal tuft of hairs. Endosperm mealy (or sometimes flinty).

The plant is a perennial herb with a stout vertical rhizome covered with remnants of old leaf sheaths. The stout, simple stems are 50 to 175 cm tall. They have been mistaken for yellow gentian, Gentiana lutea, which is used in beverages, resulting in poisoning.

This shrub, long known in cultivation, consists of several crooked branching trunks from one root, 4 to 6 inches in diameter, 10 to 12 feet in height, with a smooth grey bark, leaves 3 to 5 inches long and about 3 inches wide, on short petioles, alternate, oval or obovate, acuminate, obliquely subcordate at the base, the margin crenate, dentate, scabrous, with raised spots underneath, pinnately veined and having stellate hairs.

The leaves drop off in autumn, then the yellow flowers appear, very late in September and in October, in clusters from the joints, followed by black nuts, containing white seeds which are oily and edible.

In Britain, the nut does not bear seeds, but in America, they are produced abundantly, but often do not ripen till the following summer. The seeds are ejected violently when ripe, hence the name Snapping Hazelnut. The leaves are inodorous, with an astringent and bitterish aromatic taste.

The twigs are flexible and rough, colour externally, yellowish-brown to purple, wood greeny white, pith small. The bark as found in commerce is usually in quilled pieces 1/16 inch thick, 2 to 8 inches long, with silvery grey, scaly cork; longitudinally striated; fracture fibrous and laminated; taste and odour slight.

Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort or common wormwood) is one of several species in the genus Artemisia commonly known as mugwort. It is a tall herbaceous perennial plant growing 1–2 m (rarely 2.5 m) tall, with a woody root. The leaves are 5–20 cm long, dark green, pinnate, with dense white tomentose hairs on the underside. The erect stem often has a red-purplish tinge. The rather small flowers (5 mm long) are radially symmetrical with many yellow or dark red petals. The narrow and numerous capitula (flower heads) spread out in racemose panicles.