40 FAMILY HERBAL. 



Lut sharp-pointed, and have each two little one? 

 near the base ; they are of a dusky green and 

 indented, and they grow singly on the stalks-. 

 The {lowers are small, and of a line purplish blue, 

 with yellow threads in the middle. The berries 

 are oblong. This is little regarded in medicine, 

 but it deserves to be better known ; we account 

 the night-shades poisonous, and many of them 

 are so ; but this has no harm in it. The wood 

 of the larger branches and the young shoots of 

 the leaves, are a safe and excellent purge. I have 

 known a dropsy taken early cured by this single 

 medicine. 



Blood-wort. JLapathum sanguincum. 



A BEAUTIFUL kind of dock kept in gardens, 

 and wild in some places. It grows to four feet 

 high ; the stalks are firm, stiff, upright, branch- 

 ed, and striated. The leaves are very long and 

 narrow, broadest at the base, and smaller all the 

 way to the end. They are not at all indented 

 at the edges, and they stand upon long foot- 

 stalks : their colour is a deep green, but they 

 arc in different degrees stained with a beautiful 

 blood red ; sometimes the ribs only are red, some- 

 times there are long veins of red irregularly 

 spread over the whole leaf ; sometimes they are 

 very broad, and in some plants the whole leaves 

 and the stalks also are of a blood colour ; the 

 flowers are very numerous and little. They in 

 all respects resemble those of the common wild 

 docks. The root is long and thick, and of a deep 

 blood red colour. 



The roots are used : they are best dry, and they 

 may be given in decoction, or in powder : They are 

 a powerfully astringent : they stop bloody fluxes. 



