166 CULP1BPBR8 COMPLKTE HERBAL. 



with small greeo leaver at every one, but all of them turn- 

 ing their heads ooe way, and hanging downwards, having 

 some threads also in the middle, from whence rise round 

 heads, pointed sharp at the ends, wherein small brown 

 seed lies. The roots are so many small fibres, and some 



greater strings among them ; the flowers have no scent, 

 ut the leaves have a bitter hot taste. 

 Place, — It grows on dry sandy ground for the most 

 part, and as well on the higher as the lower places under 

 nedge-sides in almost every county of England. 



Time. — It seldom flowers before July, and the seed is 

 lipe in August. 



Government and Virtues. — The plant is under the domi- 

 nion of Venus, being of a gentle cleansing quality, and 

 withal very friendly to nature. The herb is familiarly 

 and frequently used by the Italians to heal any fresh or 

 green wound, the leaves being but bruised and bound 

 thereon ; and the juice thereof is also used in old sores, to 

 cleanse, dry, and heal them. The decoction hereof made 

 up with some sugar or honey, is available to cleanse and 

 purge the body both upwards and downwards, sometimes 

 of tough phlegm and clammy humours, and to open ob- 

 structions of the liver and spleen. It has been found by 

 experience to be available for the king's-evil, the herb 

 bruised and applied, or an ointment m^e with the juice 

 thereof, and so used ; and a decoction of two handfuls 

 thereof with four ounces of polypody in ale, has been 

 found oy late experience to cure divers of the falling sick- 

 ness, that have been troubled with it above twenty years. 

 I am confident that an ointment thereof is one of the best 

 remedies for a scabby head. 



¥\5^lT0B.Y.'-(Fumcma Oficinalis.) 



Descrip, — The Common Fumitory is a tender sappy 

 herb ; it sends forth from one square — a slender weak 

 stalk, and leaning downwards on all sides— many branches 

 two or three feet long, with finely cut and jagged leaves 

 of whitish, or rather bluish, sea-green colour : at the tops 

 of the branches stand many smaD flowers, as it were, in a 

 long spike one above another, made like little birds, of a 

 reddisn purple colour, with whitish bellies ; after which 

 come small round husks, containing small black seeds. 

 The root is yellow, small, and not very long, full of juice 

 wliile it is green, but quickly perishes with the ripe seed. 

 In the corn-tielcU of ComwaiI» it bears white flowers. 



