Celery the winners of the sacred Nemean Games was also made of celery. The Ancient Greek colony of Selinous (, "Selinous"), on Sicily, was named after wild parsley that grew abundantly there; Selinountian coins depicted a parsley leaf as the symbol of the city. The perennial BBC television series Doctor Who featured the Fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison, from 1981–84), who wore a sprig of celery as a corsage. The name "celery" retraces the plant's route of successive adoption in European cooking, as the English "celery" (1664) is derived from the French "céleri" coming from the Lombard term, "seleri", from
Celery Celery salt is used as a seasoning, in cocktails (notably to enhance the flavor of Bloody Mary cocktails), on the Chicago-style hot dog, and in Old Bay Seasoning. Celery seeds have been used widely in Eastern herbal traditions such as Ayurveda. Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote that celery seeds could relieve pain in around AD 30. Though scientific evidence is lacking, it is still used as in ancient times for water retention, arthritis, and inflammation, and has seen more recent uses for reducing blood pressure and muscular spasms and as a mosquito repellent. Celery is used in weight-loss diets, where it