42 culpeper'b complete hssbal. 



a lax, ai^d the ashes of the husks, made up with hog'g 

 grease, helpeth the old pains, contusions, and wounds of 

 the sinews, the sciatica and gout. The field beans have 

 all the afore-mentioned virtues as the garden beans. Beans 

 eaten are extremely windj meat ; but if after the Dutch 

 fashion, when they are half boiled you husk them and 

 then stew them, (I cannot tell you how, for I never wa« 

 oook in all my life) they are wholesome food. 



BEANS (FEENCR)— (PAo^eo^iM Vulgaris,) 



Deserip. — This French or kidney bean ariseth at first 

 but with one stalk, which afterwards divides itself into 

 many arms or branches, but all so weak that if they be 

 not sustained with sticks or poles, they will be fruitless 

 upon the ground. At several places of these branches 

 grow foot stalks, each with three broad, round and point- 

 ed green leaves at the end of them ; towards the top come 

 forth divers flowers made like unto pea blossom, of the 

 same colour for the most part that the fruit will be of — 

 that is to say, white, yellow, red, blackish, or of a deep 



fmrple, but white is the most usual ; after which come 

 ong and slender flat pods, some crooked, some straight, 

 with a string runnino^ down the back thereof, wherein is 

 flattish round fruit made like a kidney : the root long, 

 spreadeth with many strings annexed to it, and perisheth 

 every year. 



There is another sort of French beans commonly grow- 

 ing with us in this land, which is called the scarlet flower- 

 ed bean. 



This ariseth with sundry branches as the other, but runs 

 higher to the length of hop poles, about which they grow 

 twining, but turning contrary to the sun, having foot 

 stalks with three leaves on each, as on the other ; the 

 flowers also are like the other, and of a most orient scarlet 

 colour. The beans are larger than the ordinary kind, of a 

 dead purple colour, turning black when ripe and dry. The 

 root perisheth in winter. 



Ooveminent and Virtues, —These also belong to Dame 

 Venus,^ and being dried and beat to powder, are as great 

 strengtheners of the kidneys as any are ; neither is there a 

 better remedy than it : a dram at a time taken in white 

 wine, to prevent the stone, or to cleanse the kidneys of 

 gravel or stoppage. The ordinary French beans are of an 

 easy digestion ; they move the belly* provoke urine, en* 



