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102 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
_ they be bathed with the juice, or anointed 
with ointment made thereof, and some of the 
skin of the leaf upon them; it is also used 
in green wounds to stay the blood, and to 
heal them quickly. 
KNAPWEED. 
Descript.| Tue common sort hereof 
has many long and somewhat dark green 
leaves, rising from the root, dented about 
the edges, and sometimes a little rent or 
torn on both sides in two or three places, 
and somewhat hairy withal; amongst 
which arises a long round stalk, four or five 
feet high, divided into many branches, at 
the tops whereof stand great scaly green 
heads, and from the middle of them thrust 
forth a number of dark purplish red 
thrumbs or threads, which after they are 
withered and past, there are found divers 
black seeds, lying in a great deal of down, 
somewhat like unto Thistle seed, but 
smaller; the root is white, hard and woody, 
and divers fibres annexed thereunto, which 
perishes not, but abides with leaves thereon 
all the Winter, shooting out fresh every 
spring. 
Place.] It grows in most fields and mea- 
dows, and about their borders and hedges, 
and in many waste grounds also every 
_ where. 
Time.| It usually flowers in June and 
July, and the seed is ripe shortly after. 
_ Government and virtues.] Saturn chal- 
_ lenges the herb for his own. This Knap- 
_ weed helps to stay fluxes, both of blood at 
_ the mouth or nose, or other outward parts, 
_ and those veins that are inwardly broken, 
or inward wounds, as also the fluxes of the 
- belly; it stays distillations of thin and sharp 
_ humours from the head upon the stomach 
and lungs; it is good for those that are 
. bruised by any fall, blows or otherwise, and 
profitable for those that are bursten, and 
ruptures, by drinking the decoction of 
the same outwardly to the place. It is sin- 
gularly good in all running sores, cancerous 
and fistulous, drying up of the moisture, 
and healing them up so gently, without 
sharpness ; it doth the like to running sores 
or scabs of the head or other parts. It is 
of special use for the soreness of the throat, 
swelling of the uvula and jaws, and excel- 
lently good to stay bleeding, and heal up all 
green wounds. 
KNOTGRASS. 
Irv is generally known so well that it 
needs no description. 
Place.] It grows in every county of this 
land, by the highway sides, and by foot- 
paths in fields; as also by the sides of old 
walls. 
Time.| It springs up late in the Spring, 
and abides until the Winter, when all the 
branches perish. 
Government and virtues.| Saturn seems 
to me to own the herb, and yet some hold 
the sun; out of doubt ’tis Saturn. The 
juice of the common kind of Knotgrass 
is most effectual to stay bleeding of the 
mouth, being drank in steeled or red wine; 
and the bleeding at the nose, to be applied 
to the forehead or temples, or to be squirted 
up into the nostrils. It is no less effectual 
to cool and temper the heat of the blood 
and stomach, and to stay any flux of the 
blood and humours, as lasks, bloody-flux, 
women’s courses, and running of the reins. 
It is singularly good to provoke urine, help 
the stranguary, and allays the heat that 
comes thereby; and is powerful by urine 
to expel the gravel or stone in the kidneys 
and bladder, a dram of the powder of 
the herb being taken in wine for many days 
together. Being boiled in wine and drank, 
it is profitable to those that are stung oF 
bitten by venomous creatures, and very 
effectual to stay all defluctions of rheumatic _ 
