Celery

Celery was a plant largely composed of water.

During his fifth incarnation, the Doctor took to wearing a stalk of celery on the left breast of his frock coat. This began after his regeneration when he visited the city of Castrovalva in Andromeda. He considered it as a sign of civilisation. (DW: Castrovalva) He replaced his celery at the party of the Eternal, Captain Wrack. (DW: Enlightenment)


 * Rather curiously, both stalks come from buffets which are essentially figments of other people's imagination (Castrovalva and the Eternal's ship both being 'unreal') - although this may explain why the celery never goes off.

Although a later incarnation of the Doctor later dismissed the celery as merely a "decorative vegetable" (DW: Time Crash), the celery may have also served a practical purpose. The fifth incarnation of the Doctor claimed to be allergic to certain gases in the Praxis range of the spectrum, in the presence of which the herb turns purple. In that case, he would eat the celery; if nothing else, he said, at least it would be good for his teeth.

The Doctor apparently also believed the celery to possess some restorative ability, as he attempted to revive a dying Peri by having her smell the celery. Her human olfactory sense did not suffice for the plant to help her. (DW: The Caves of Androzani)

Peri Brown once found herself in a dimension modelled upon a combination of the Alice in Wonderland book she had been reading and the salad she had been eating. Among the creatures she met in this world was a talking stalk of celery. (DWM: Salad Daze)

When then Eleventh Doctor had been captured by the Silurians, Malohkeh attempted to decontaminate him of the surface bacteria, which harms the Doctor. After pleading with the Silurian doctor that he was "not ape", Malokeh stopped the decontamination process. After taking a couple of breaths, the Doctor said "That's much better, thanks. Not got any celery have you?" (DW: Cold Blood)

Behind the scenes

 * While the Fifth Doctor loved celery, Peter Davison hated celery. During a scene in Castrovalva in which he had to eat celery, he spat it out after the first take. (DCOM: Castrovalva)
 * The celery worn by Davison was artificial. Davison has described the one he wore during his television run as looking "like a piece of embroidery" up close, and found the replica celery he was given to wear when reprising the role for Time Crash much better-looking. Upon learning that Davison's celery hadn't been real, David Tennant said he was "devastated."
 * The first piece of celery the Doctor pinned to his lapel was from the artificial reality of Castrovalva. When he replaced it in Enlightenment, it was from a similarly artificial environment. This may explain its unreal appearance.
 * The notion of an individual wearing a celery stalk on his lapel did not originate with the Fifth Doctor. In a 1965 episode of The Avengers (a series, coincidentally, created by Doctor Who co-creator Sydney Newman) entitled "Two's a Crowd", an individual impersonating John Steed is criticised for a particularly leafy choice of flower to wear on his lapel. A character remarks that he might as well have worn a piece of celery instead.
 * The Fourth Doctor had occasionally been seen to wear a brooch on his lapel, most notably one shaped like an artist's palette in City of Death, but the celery was the first lapel augmentation worn consistently by the Doctor. The theme of having the Doctor wearing something unusual on his lapel was continued with the Sixth Doctor wearing a variety of cat-shaped pins. The Seventh Doctor was also seen on occasion to wear items on his lapel, but not as regularly as his predecessors. By the arrival of the Eighth Doctor, the Doctor's lapels were accessory-free and remain so to the present day.