«66 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
two ounces at a time; it makes an excellent 
salve to cleanse and heal old ulcers, being 
boiled with oil of olive, and adders tongue 
with it, and after it is strained, put a little 
wax, rosin, and turpentine, to bring it to a 
convenient body. 
CUDWEED, OR COTTONWEED. 
Besipes Cudweed and Cottonweed, it is 
also called Chaffweed, Dwarff Cotton, and 
Petty Cotton. 
Descript.| The common Cudweed rises 
up with one stalk sometimes, and some- 
times with two or three, thick set on all 
sides with small, long and narrow whitish 
or woody leaves, from the middle of the 
stalk almost up to the top, with every leaf 
stands small flowers of a dun or brownish 
yellow colour, or not so yellow as others; 
in which herbs, after the flowers are fallen, 
come small seed wrapped up, with the down 
therein, and is carried away with the wind; 
the root is small and thready. 
There are other sorts hereof, which are 
somewhat less than the former, not much 
different, save only that the stalks and 
leaves are shorter, so that the flowers are 
paler and more open. 
Place.| They grow in dry, barren, sandy, 
and gravelly grounds, in most places of this 
land. . 
Time.| They flower about July, some 
earlier, some later, and their seed is ripe in 
August. 
Government and virtues.] Venus is Lady 
of it. The plants are all astringent, bind- 
ing, or drying, and therefore profitable for 
defluctions of rheum from the head, and to 
stay fluxes of blood wheresoever, the de- 
coction being made into red wine and 
drank, or the powder taken therein. It also 
helps the bloody-flux, and eases the tor- 
ments that come thereby, stays the im- 
_ moderate courses of women, and is also good 
Me for inward or outward wounds, hurts, and 
and the worms, and being either drank or 
injected, for the disease called Tenesmus, 
which is an often provocation to the stool — 
without doing any thing. The green leaves 
bruised, and laid to any green wound, stays 
the bleeding, and heals it up quickly. The 
juice of the herb taken in wine and milk, 
is, as Pliny saith, a sovereign remedy — 
against the mumps and quinsey ; and further 
saith, That whosoever shall so take it, shall 
never be troubled with that disease again. 
COWSLIPS, OR PEAGLES. 
Boru the wild and garden Cowslips are 
so well known, that I neither trouble my- | 
self nor the reader with a description of — 
them. ; 
Time.| They flower in April and May. 
Government and virtues.| Venus lays 
claim to this herb as her own, and it is 
under the sign Aries, and our city dames 
know well enough the ointment or distilled 
water of it adds beauty, or at least restores 
it when it is lost. The flowers are held to 
be more effectual than the leaves, and the 
roots of little use. An ointment being 
made with them, takes away spots and 
wrinkles of the skin, sun-burning, and 
freckles, and adds beauty exceedingly; 
they remedy all infirmities of the head 
coming of heat and wind, as vertigo, ephi- 
altes, false apparitions, phrensies, falling- 
sickness, palsies, convulsions, cramps, pains 
in the nerves; the roots ease pains in the 
back and bladder, and open the passages of 
urine. The leaves are good in wounds, 
and the flowers take away trembling. If 
the flowers be not well dried, and kept in 
a warm place, they will soon putrefy and 
look green: Have a special eye over them. 
If you let them see the Sun once a month, 
it will do neither the Sun nor them harm. 
Because they strengthen the brain and 
nerves, and remedy palsies, the Greeks 
gave them the name Paralysis. The flowers 
| preserved or conserved, and the quantity of 
