This common weed has been grown in gardens for centuries as a fresh tasting salad leaf, salad burnet. It has also been used in traditional medicine as dressings for wounds and burns; the name sanguisorba means to absorb blood.

The flower are unusual, arranged in rounded heads on the ends of upright, flexible stems; they have no petals, but the sexual parts are surrounded by a green calyx. Some of the flowers have only male parts, stamens; some have only female parts, stigmas; and some have both, hermaphrodites. The stamens on long wavy filaments, emerge before the  stigmas; this arrangement prevents self-fertilisation. The stigmas are feathery, to increase the chance of catching pollen; they are usually bright pink but occasionally white: the plants are pollinated by the wind.