224 FAMILY HERBAL. 



a joint,, and long straggling 1 spikes of yellow flow- 

 ers. It is a foot and a half high, or more. The 

 stalk is weak, slender, green, and striated. The 

 (eaves are oblong, and blunt at the ends : they 

 are serrated round the edges, and of a bright green 

 colour. The flowers are small, and of the shape 

 of the flowers of tares, but little ; and there follows 

 each a roundish pod, rough and green. The whole 

 plant has a singular, but not disagreeable smell ; and 

 the leaves are the food of so many insects, that they 

 are commonly gnawn to pieces. 



The fresh plant is excellent to mix in pultices, to be 

 applied to swellings. It was once famous in a plaister, 

 used for dressing of blisters, but the apothecaries used 

 to play so many bad tricks, to imitate the green colour 

 it was expected to give, that the plaister is now made 

 without it. 



Melon. Melo, 



A training herb, with yellow flowers, and large 

 fruit ; weH known at our tables. The plant grows 

 to eight or tan feet long, but is not erect. The stalks 

 are angulated, thick, and of a pale green. The 

 leaves are large and broad, somewhat roundish, and 

 not deeply divdeu, as in most of the creeping plants 

 of this sort. There are tendrils on the stalk for its 

 laying hold of any thing. The flowers are very 

 large, and open a' the mouth. The fruit is oblong 

 and rough, more or less on the surface, containing 

 seeds, with ajuicy matter within. 



The seeds are the part used : 1 1 up y arc cooling, and 

 vork by urine. They are be?i given in an emulsion, 

 heat up with bailey water : this is a good drink in 

 fivers ffiven warm. 



