FAMILY HERBAL. 31 



some! imps the divisions are fewer. The flowers 

 are very large and beautiful, they are as big as 

 a common single rose, or nearly so ; they are 

 white, reddish, or greenish, according to the time 

 of their having been open ; and they stand each 

 on a single stalk, which rises from the root, and 

 has no leaves on it. It flowers in January. 



The root is an excellent purge, it works briskly 

 but safely ; it destroys worms, and is good in 

 dropsies, jaundice, and many other diseases, and 

 even in madness. But it is very necessary to keep 

 it in one's own garden, for, if the root be bought, 

 they commonly sell that of the green flowered, 

 wild or bastard hellebore in its place, which is a 

 rough medicine. 



Ladies' Bedstraw, Gallium lutcum* 



A PRETTY wild plant, frequent about hedges 

 in June and the succeeding months. The stalk 

 is weak and two feet high ; the leaves are of a 

 blackish green, and small ; and the flowers are 

 yellow. The stalk is angular and whitish, very 

 brittle, and seldom straight ; the leaves stand a great 

 many at each joint, and are small, narrow, and 

 disposed about the stalk like the rowels of a 

 spur : the flowers grow in great tufts on the 

 tops of the stalks, so that they make a very 

 conspicuous appearance, though singly they are 

 very small. 



This herb is little regarded, but it has verv 

 great virtue ; it should be gathered., when the 

 flowers are not quite blown, and dried in the 

 shade. An infusion of it will cure the most violent 

 bleedings at the nose, and almost all other evacua- 

 tions of blood. 



