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1 03 FAMILY HERBAL 



HoNEv ORT. Selinum siifolUs. 



4 



'• A COMMON plant in corn-fields and drjr 

 placesj with extremelj beautiful leaves from the 

 Tooiy and VitiXe umbels of white flowers. It has its 

 English name from its Yirtues. Painful swellings^ 

 are in sottie parts of the kingdom called houes, and 

 the herb, from its singular effect in curing them, 

 has received the name of honewort^ that is hone- 

 herb. 



The root is long and white ; they f ise from it 

 early in the springs half a dozen ot more leaves, 

 which lie spread upon the ground, in an elegant 

 manner, and are all that is generally obserred of 

 the plant. The stalks do not rise till the end of 

 summer, and these leaves decay by that time, so 

 that they are not known to belong to it. These 

 Jeaves are eight inches long, and an inch and a half 

 in breadth : they are composed each of a double 

 row of smaller leaves, set on a common rib, with 

 an odd kaf at the end ; these are oblong, tolerably 

 broad, and indented in a beautiful manner. They 

 are'of a fresh green colour ; tliey are the part of 

 the plant most seen, and the part to be used ; and 

 they are not easily confounded w i(h those of any 

 other plant, for there is scarce any that has what 

 are nearly so handsome. The stalk is two feet high, 

 round, hollow, upright, but not very firm, and 

 , branched toward the top. The leaves on it are 

 somewhat like those from the root, but they have 

 not tlie singularity of those beautiful and numerous 

 small ones ; the flowers are little and white, ard 

 the seeds are small, flatted, striated, and two of 

 them follow Qyeiy tlower. 



Tl\e leaves are to be used ; they are to be fresh 

 fathered and beat in a marble mortar into a kind of 

 ^p^te. They are to be laid on » swelling that if 



