CENTURY VII. 295 



spurge, c. The cause may be an inception of 

 putrefaction : for those milks have all an acrimony : 

 though one would think they should be lenitive. 

 For if you write upon paper with the milk of the fig, 

 the letters will not be seen, until you hold the paper 

 before the fire, and then they wax brown : which 

 sheweth that it is a sharp or fretting juice : lettuce 

 is thought poisonous, when it is so old as to have 

 milk ; spurge is a kind of poison in itself, and as for 

 sow thistles, though coneys eat them, yet sheep and 

 cattle will not touch them : and besides, the milk of 

 them rubbed upon warts, in short time weareth them 

 away ; which sheweth the milk of them to be corro 

 sive. We see also that wheat and other corn, sown, 

 if you take them forth of the ground before they 

 sprout, are full of milk, and the beginning of germi 

 nation is ever a kind of putrefaction of the seed. 

 Euphorbium also hath a milk, though not very 

 white, which is of a great acrimony : and salladine 

 hath a yellow milk, which hath likewise much acri 

 mony ; for it cleanseth the eyes. It is good also for 

 cataracts. 



640. Mushrooms are reported to grow, as well 

 upon the bodies of trees, as upon their roots, or upon 

 the earth ; and especially upon the oak. The cause 

 is, for that strong trees are towards such excrescences 

 in the nature of earth ; and therefore put forth moss, 

 mushrooms, and the like. 



641. There is hardly found a plant that yieldeth 

 a red juice in -the blade or ear ; except it be the tree 

 that beareth sanguis draconis ; which groweth chiefly 



