28 THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
also stays the overflowing of the women’s 
reds, as the white Blites stay the whites 
in women. It is an excellent secret; you 
cannot well fail in the use. They are all 
under the dominion of Venus. 
There is another sort of wild Blites like 
the other wild kinds, but have long and 
spikey heads of greenish seeds, seeming by 
the thick setting together to be all seed. 
This sort the fishers are delighted with, 
and it is good and usual bait; for fishes 
will bite fast enough at them, if you have 
wit enough to catch them when they bite. 
BORAGE AND BUGLOSS. 
TueEsE are so well known to the inhabi- 
tants in every garden that I hold it needless 
to describe them. 
To these I may add a third sort, which 
is not so common, nor yet so well known, 
and therefore I shall give you its name and 
description. 
It is called Langue de Baeuf; but why 
then should they call one herb by the name 
of Bugloss, and another by the name 
Langue de Beuf? it is some question to me, 
seeing one signifies Ox-tongue in Greek, 
and the other signifies the same in French, 
Descript.| The leaves whereof are small- 
er than those of Bugloss but much rougher; 
the stalks rising up about a foot and a half 
high, and is most commonly of a red colour; 
the flowers stand in scaly rough heads, be- 
ing composed of many small yellow flowers, 
not much unlike to those of Dandelions, 
and the seed flieth away in down as that 
doth; you may easily know the flowers by 
- their taste, for they are very bitter. 
_ Place.] It grows wild in many places 
of this Jand, and may be plentifully found 
near London, as between Rotherhithe and 
Deptford, by the ditch side. Its virtues 
are held to be the same with Borage and 
Bugloss, only this is somewhat hotter. 
Time.| They flower in June and July, 
_ and the seed is ripe shortly after. 
Government and virtues.| They are all 
three herbs of Jupiter and under Leo, all. 
great cordials, and great strengtheners of — 
nature. The leaves and roots are to very 
good purpose used in putrid and pestilential 
fevers, to defend the heart, and help to 
resist and expel the poison, or the venom 
of other creatures; the seed is of the like 
effects; and the seed and leaves are good 
to increase milk in women’s breasts; the 
leaves, flowers, and seed, all or any of 
them, are good to expel pensiveness and — 
melancholy; it helps to clarify the blood, 
and mitigate heat in fevers. The juice 
made into a syrup prevails much to all 
the purposes aforesaid, and is put with 
other cooling, opening and cleansing herbs 
to open obstructions, and help the yellow | 
jaundice, and mixed with fumitory, to cool, 
cleanse, and temper the blood thereby; it 
helps the itch, ringworms and tetters, or 
other spreading scabs or sores. The flowers — 
candied or made into a conserve, are help- 
ful in the former cases, but are chiefly used 
as a cordial, and are good for those that 
are weak in long sickness, and to comfort — 
the heart and spirits of those that are in 8 
consumption, or troubled with often swoon — 
ings, or passions of the heart. The distilled — 
water is no less effectual to all the purposes — 
aforesaid, and helps the redness and inflam- — 
mations of the eyes, being washed there- — 
with; the herb dried is never used, but the — 
green; yet the ashes thereof boiled in- 
mead, or honied water, is available against 
the inflammations and ulcers in the mouth — 
or throat, to gargle it therewith; the roots 
of Bugloss are effectual, being made into — 
a licking electuary for the cough, and to 
condensate thick phlegm, and the rheuma- 
tic distillations upon the lungs. 
BLUE-BOTTLE. 
Tr is called Syanus, I suppose from the 
colour of it: Hurt-sickle, because it turns 
