THE ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 24 5 



Place.l Those with the pale blue, and those with the 

 ■white flowers, grow in woods and orchards, by the hedge- 

 sides, in divers places of this land ; but those with the 

 purple tlower in gardens only. 



2V/«e.] They flower in March and April. 



Government and Virtues.'] Venus owns this herb, and 

 saith, that the leaves eaten by man and wife together, 

 cause love between them. The Periwinkle is a great 

 binder, stayeth bleeding at the mouth and nose, if some 

 of the leaves be chewed. The French use it to stay 

 ■women's courses. Dioscorides, Galen aud iEgineta, 

 commended it against the lasks and fluxes of the belly to 

 be drank in wine. 



St. Peter's Wort. O in .Q. (h. d. 2. J 



If Superstition had not been the father of Tradition, as 

 ■well as ignorance the mother of Devotion, this herb, 

 (as well as St. John's Wort) had found some other name 

 to be known by ; but wc may say of our forefathers, as 

 St. Paul of the Atlienians, 1 j)erccivc in many thins,s you 

 lire too superyiilious. Yet seeing it is come to pass, that 

 custom having got into possession, pleads prescription for 

 the name, 1 shall let it pass, and come to the description of 

 the herb, which take as foUoweth. 



DcscriptP\ It riseth up with square upright stalks for 

 the most part, some greater and higher than St. John's 

 "VVort (and good reason too, St. Peter being the greater 

 Apostle', ask the Pope else ; for though God would have 

 the saints equal, the Pope is of another opinion) but 

 brown in the same manner, having two leaves at every 

 joint; somewhat like, larger than St. John's Wort, a little 

 rounder pointed, with a few or no holes to be seen 

 thereon, and having some smaller leaves rising from the 

 bosom of the greater, and sometimes a little hairy also. 

 At the tops of two stalks stand many star-like flowers, 

 ■with yellow threads in the middle, very like those of St. 

 John's Wort, insomuch that this is hardly discerned frop' 

 it, but only by the largeness and height, the seed b"''"S 

 alike also in both. The root abideth longj seiidue ^^J^ta 

 new shoots every year. 



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