FAMILY HERBAL. 3 



bright green colour ; it is thick and fleshy, and has 

 no ribs or veins. The stalk on which it stands rises 

 from a root composed of small fibres, and is four 

 inches or more high. The spike rises to about the 

 same height above it ; and the tongue or seed- 

 vessel is notched on each side. The whole plant is 

 buried among the grass, and must be sought in 

 April and May, for it dies off soon after ; and no- 

 thing is seen of it till the next season. 



It is a fine cooling herb, and an excellent 

 ointment is made from it. The leaves are to be 

 chopped to pieces, and four pounds of them are 

 to be put into three pounds of suet and one pint 

 of oil melted together. The whole is to be boiled 

 till the herb is a little crisp, and then the ointment 

 i to be strained off: it will be of a beautiful green. 

 Some give the juice of the plant, or the powder 

 of the dried leaves, inwardly in wounds ; but this 

 is trifling. 



Agrimony. Agrimonia. 



A common English plant : it flowers in the midst 

 of summer. It grows to a foot or more in height ; 

 the leaves are winged, and the flowers are 

 yellow. The root is perennial ; the leaves are 

 hairy, of a pale green, and notched at the edges ; 

 the stalk is single, firm, and round ; the flowers 

 stand in a long spike ; they are small and nu- 

 merous, and the seed-vessels which succeed them 

 are rough like burs. The plant is common about 

 hedges. 



The leaves are used fresh or dried ; they have 

 been recommended in the jaundice ; but they are 

 found by experience to be good in the diabetes and 

 incontinence of urine. The plant is alsp one of the 



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