0ULPXP1R8 COMPLBTX HERBAL. 116 



[t tlender aud ioiuted, are narrower but rough still ; on 

 the top groweth a long spike composed of many heads set 

 one above another, containing two or three husks with 

 sharp but short beards or awns at the ends ; the seed is 

 easily shook out of the ear, the husk itself being some- 

 what rough. 



Plcict, — The country husbandmen do know this too weU 

 to grow among their com, or in the borders and pathways 

 of other fields that are fallow. 



OovemmerU and Virtue*, — It is a malicious part of sul- 

 len Saturn. As it is not without some vices, so hath it 

 also many virtues. The meal of darnel is very good to 

 •t&y gangrenes and other such like fretting and eating 

 canker and putrid sores ; it also cleanseth the skin of all 

 leprosies, morphews, ring-worms, and the like, if it be 

 used with salt and raddish roots. And being used with 

 quick brimstone and vinegar, it dissolveth knots and 

 kernels, and breaketh those that are hard to be dissolved, 

 being boiled in wine with pigeon's dung and linseed. A 

 decoction thereof made with water and honey, and the 

 places bathed therewith is profitable for the sciatica. 

 Darnel meal applied in a ooultice draweth forth splinter! 

 and broken bones in the nesh. The red darnel boiled in 

 red wine aud taken, stayeth the lax and all other fluxes 

 and women's bloody issues, and restraineth urine that 

 pMMth away too suddenly. 



DEVIL'S BIT,^( Scabwsa Succisa.) 



Detcrtp. — This riseth up with around green smooth stalk 

 about two feet high, set with divers long and somewhat 

 narrow, smooth, dark green leaves, somewhat nipped 

 about the edses for the most part, being else all whole 

 and not divided at all, or but very seldom, even at the 

 tops of the branches, which are yet smaller than thoso 

 below, with one rib ohlj in the middle. At the end of 

 •ach branch standeth a round head of many flowers set 

 together in the same manner, or more neatly than scabious, 

 aud of a more blueish purple colour, which being past, 

 there foUoweth seed that falleth away. The root some- 

 what thick, but short and blackish, with many strings, 

 abiding after seed time many years. This root was longer, 

 until the devil (as the friars say) bit away the rest of it 

 for spit«, envying ita usefulueiw to mankind : for sure he 

 w.a not troubled with any disease for which it is proper. 



