350 FAMILY HERBAL, 



they are broad, roundish, and of a deepgreen colour ; 

 they are of a fleshy substance, and stand each on 

 a separate foot-stalk cf three or four inches long. 

 The flowers are small, and of a very bright white; 

 they stand in a kind of loose spike on the tops of 

 the stalks. The root is composed of a quantity of 

 thick whitish fibres. 



The leaves are used. A decoction of them with 

 a piece of cinnamon, and a little red wine, is giver 

 against the overflowings of the menses, bloody 3too!s, 

 and all haemorrhages, and against ulcers in the 

 urinary passages, and bloody urine. 



Woad. Giastum. 



A PLANT cultivated in fields, in many parts 

 of England, for the use of the dyer3, and com- 

 monly met with in places near those where it wat 

 sown, as if a wild plant ; but it is not properly a 

 native of our country. It is a tall, erect, and hand- 

 some plant ; the stalk is round, thick, firm, upright, 

 and four feet high ; but it is usually so covered 

 with the leaves, that scarce any part of it is to be 

 ieen naked. The leaves arc long and of a consider- 

 able breadth. They arc large at the base, where 

 they grow to the stalk, without any foot-stalks ; 

 and narrower all the way to the point. They are 

 of a bluish green colour, and the whole plant is 

 covered with them, so the top has a pretty aspect. 

 The flowers arc little and yellow ; they stand in 

 great numbers about the tops of the stalks, which 

 are divided into a multitude of small branches; 

 and they are succeeded by small seed vessels. The 

 root is long and thick. 



Although the dyers arc the people who pay 

 most regard to woad, and for whose use it is cul- 

 tivated, it has virtues that demand for it a great 



