FAMILY HERBAL. 143 



picuous for its pretty, though small, flower. The 

 stalks are five or six inches long, round, hairy, 

 weak, and trailing' upon the ground. The leaves- 

 are little, hairy, rounded, and placed irregularly. 

 The {lowers are very small, but they are variegated 

 with purple and yellow, both colours very bright ; 

 they have a heel behind, and each stands upon a 

 little hairy foot-stalk, arising from the bosom of the 

 leaf. 



There is another kind, the leaves of which have 

 two ears at their base ; in other respects they arc 

 the same, and they have the same virtues. The 

 juice of either is cooling and astringent. It is 

 given by the country people in the bloody flux and 

 overflowing of the menses. 



Fool's Stones. Satyrium sire orchis. 



A beautiful wild plant in our meadows and 

 pastures in June. The leaves are long and spotted, 

 and the flowers are purple. It grows ten inches 

 high. The leaves are six inches long, and three 

 quarters of an inch broad, of a very deep green, 

 with large and irregular blotches of black in different 

 parts. The stalk is round, thick, upright, single, 

 and fleshy ; it lias two or three smaller leaves of the 

 same figure, and at the top stand the flowers, in a 

 spike of an inch and a half long ; they are not very 

 large, and of a shape different from the generality 

 of flowers ; their colour is a deep and glossy purple ; 

 but sometimes they are white. The whole plant is 

 juicy. The root consists of two round bulbs or 

 two round lumps, like a pair of testicles, and is 

 white and full of a slimy juice. 



The root is the only part used. It is supposed 

 to be a strengthener of the parts of generation, and 



