AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN. ENLARGED. 
167 
plague-sores; also helps the king’s evil, 
being applied to the place. Being spread 
over a piece of leather, and applied to the 
navel, kills the worms in the belly, helps 
scabs and itch, running sores, cankers, tet- 
ters, and ringworms; and being applied to 
the place, many haply cure venerea sores. 
This I thought good to speak of, as it may 
be safely used outwardly, for inwardly it 
cannot be taken without manifest danger. 
THE COMMON WHITE SAXIFRAGE. 
Descript.] Tus hath a few small red- 
dish kernels of roots covered with some 
| Skins, lying among divers small blackish 
fibres, which send forth divers round, faint 
or yellow green leaves, and greyish under- 
neath, lying above the ground, unevenly 
dented about the edges, and somewhat 
hairy, every one upon a little foot-stalk, 
from whence rises up round, brownish, 
hairy, green stalks, two or three feet high, 
with a few such like round leaves as grow 
below, but smaller, and somewhat branched 
at the top, whereon stand pretty large white 
flowers of five leaves a-piece, with some 
yellow threads in the middle, standing in a 
long crested, brownish, green husk. After 
the flowers are past, there arises sometimes 
@ round hard head, forked at the top, 
wherein is contained small black seed, but 
usually they fall away without any seed, 
and it is the kernels or grains of the root 
Which are usually called the White Saxi- 
| frage-seed, and so used. 
Place.] It grows in many places of our 
land, as well in the lowermost, as in the 
upper dry corners of meadows, and grassy 
sandy places. It used to grow near Lamb’s 
conduit, on the backside of Gray’s Inn. 
Time.] It flowers in May, and then 
gathered, as well for that which is called 
| the seed, as to distil, for it quickly perishes 
down to the ground when any hot weather 
come 
Government and virtues.| It is very ef- 
fectual to cleanse the reins and bladder, 
and to dissolve the stone engendered in 
them, and to expel it and the gravel by 
urine; to help the stranguary; for which 
purpose the decoction of the herb or roots 
in white wine, is most usual, or the powder 
of the small kernelly root, which is called 
the seed, taken in white wine, or in the 
same decoction made with white wine, is 
most usual. The distilled water of the 
whole herb, root and flowers, is most fa- 
miliar to be taken. It provokes also 
women’s courses, and frees and cleanses the 
stomach and lungs from thick and tough 
phlegm that trouble them. There are not 
many better medicines to break the stone 
than this. 
BURNET SAXIFRAGE. 
‘Descript.| Tue greater sort of our 
English Burnet Saxifrage grows up with 
divers long stalks of winged leaves, set 
directly opposite one to another on both 
sides, each being somewhat broad, and a 
little pointed and dented about the edges, 
of a sad green colour. At the top of the 
stalks stand umbels of white flowers, after 
which come small and blackish seed. The 
root is long and whitish, abiding long. Our 
lesser Burnet Saxifrage hath much finer 
leaves than the former, and very small, and 
set one against another, deeply jagged 
about the edges, and of the same colour as 
the former. The umbels of the flowers are 
white, and the seed very small, and so is — 
the root, being also somewhat hot and quick 
in taste. é 
Place.] These grow in moist meadows _ 
of this land, and are easy to be found being _ 
well sought for among the grass, wherein _ 
many times they lay hid scarcely to be dis- 
