62 culpeper's complete hxbbal. 



ronnd seedB, little bigger tban parsley-seeds, of a quick 

 hot scent and taste ; the root is waite and stringy, perish- 

 ing yearly, and usually riseth again on its own sowing. 



Place, — It groweth wild in many places in England and 

 Wales, as between Greenhithe and Gravesend. 



Oovemment and Virtues. — It is hot and dry in the third 

 degree, of a bitter taste, and somewhat sharp withal : it 



Srovokes lust to purpose ; I suppose Venus iwns it. It 

 igesteth humours, provoketh unne and women's courses, 

 diasolveth wind, and being taken in wine it easeth pain 

 and griping in the bowels, and is good against the biting 

 of serpents : it is used to good enect in those medicines 

 which are given to hinder the poisonous operation of can- 

 tharides upon the passage of the urine : being mixed with 

 honey, and applied to black and blue marks coming of 

 blows or bruises, it takes them away : and being drunk or 

 outwardly applied, it abateth a high colour, and makes 

 it pale ; and tne fumes thereof taken with rosin or raisins, 

 cleanseth the mother. 



BISTORT, OB SNAKEWEED.— (Po^onitm BUtorta.) 



It is called Snakeweed, English Serpentary, Dragon- wort, 

 CNiierick. and Passions. 



Deicnp, — This hath a thick short knobbed root, black- 

 ish without, and somewhat reddish within, a little crook- 

 ed or turned together, of a hard astringent taste, with 

 divers black threads hanging therefrom, whence spring 

 up every year divers leaves standing upon long foot-stalks, 

 being somewhat broad and long like a dock leaf, and a 

 little pointed at the ends, but that it is of a blueish green 

 colour on the upper side, and of an ash-colour grey and a 

 little purplish underneath, with divers veins therein, from 

 among wnich rise up divers small and slender stalks, two 

 feet high, and almost naked and without leaves, or with a 

 very few and narrow, bearing a spiky bush of pale-colour- 

 ed flowers ; which being past, there abideth small seed, 

 like unto sorrel seed, but greater. 



There are other sorts of bistort growing in this land, 

 but smaller, both in height, root, and stalks, and espe- 

 cially in the leaves. The root is blackish without, and 

 Bomer/hat whitish within ; of an austere binding taste, as 

 the former. 



P^«.— They grow in shadowy moist woods and at tht 

 foot of hills, bat are chiefly nourished up in gardens The 



