HONEWORT 53 



1625 



It was about this time that he learnt the local name 

 (Honewort) and vertues of Corn Parsley, a plant with 

 which he had been long familiar, and to which he had 

 already given the name ' Selinum Siifoliis ' : but he had no 

 English name for it, until one day he saw Miss Ursula 

 Leigh, servant to Mistress Bilson of Mapledurham, gather- 

 ing it in the ' wheate ershes ' about Mapledurham (where 

 it still grew in 1632, especially in clay grounds). She told 

 him that it was called Honewort, and that her mother 



' late of Brading in the Isle of Wight deceased, taught her to use it 

 after the manner heere expressed, for a swelling which she had in 

 her left cheeke, which for many yeeres would once a yere at the 

 least arise there, and swell with great heat, rednesse, and itching, 

 until by the use of this herbe it was perfectly cured, and rose no 

 more nor swelled, being now (5 Martij 1632) about twenty yeeres 

 since, only the scar remaineth to this day. This swelling her 

 mother called by the name of a Hone, but asking whether such 

 tumors were in the said Isle usually called Hones she could not 

 tell, by reason shee was brought from Brading aforesaid young, 

 and not being above twelve yeeres old when shee used this 

 medicine '. ^ 



The Vertues. 



' Take one handfull of the greene leaves of this Honewort, and 

 stampe them, put to it about halfe a pinte or more of beere, straine 

 it, and drinke it, and so continue to drinke the Hke quantity every 

 morning fasting till the swelling doth abate, which with or in her 

 was performed in the space of two weekes at the most.' ^ 



Next we have the discovery of the compact little 

 Knotted Pearlwort {Sagiua nodosa), described as ' Alsine 

 palustris foliis tenuissimis : sive Saxifraga palustris alsine- 

 folia ', on the boggy ground below the Red Well of Welling- 

 borough in Northamptonshire. ' This hath not been de- 

 scribed that I finde. I observed it at the place aforesaid 

 II August 1625.' 



And in the following month he was the first to record 

 the poisonous Cowbane or Water Hemlock {Cicuta virosa), 



1 Ger. emac. 1017-18. See p. 121. 



