180 oxtlpepeb's complete hebbai* 



or syrup of the herb and flowers, is an excellent cure foi 

 the venereal disease. The spirit of it is excellent good for 

 convulsions in children, and a remedy for falling sickness, 

 inflammation of the lungs and breasts, pleurisy, scabs, itch, 

 &C. The flowers are cooling, emollient, and cathartic : it 

 is best to make a syrup, as their virtues are lost by drying. 



HEDGEWEEDS. —(Erysimum Officinale, and Erysimum 

 Barbarasa,) 



Descrip. — Common and Winter Hedgeweeds are often 

 taken for Hedge Mustard, as there is a resemblance both 

 in appearance and virtues, it is not of much consequence. 

 The roots of these weeds are long, white, woody, furnished 

 with many fibres. The stalks are round, firm, upright, of 

 a pale green, or purplish ; they erow two feet and a half 

 high, and not much branched. The leaves of the first are 

 long, pointed, and notched at the edges ; but of the Win- 

 ter Hedgeweed they are broader, thicker, more deeply in- 

 dented, and rounder. They are of a pale green colour, a 

 bitter taste ; the pith and the stalk have the same taste. 

 The flowers are small and yellow, and the seed-vessels 

 are long, slender, and squared : they stand in a kind of 

 ■pikes along the upper part of the stalk, when the plant 

 has been some time in flower. Garlic Hedgeweed, or as 

 ■ome call it, Jack by the Hedge (Allicuria Officinalis,) has 

 the taste of the former, but the appearance is somewhat 

 different, for this has smaller white flowers and rounder 

 leaves, of a finer green, and not rough at the edges, not 

 BO much resembling Wormwood or Southernwood as those 

 do ; but the seed-vessels are the same shaped, and the 

 ■eed looks the same. 



FloM. — They are common in waste places, which are 

 overrun with water ; the fens in the Isle of Ely, in Cam- 

 bridgeshire, and in Derbyshire, produce them abundantly. 



TvmA, — They are sometimes in flower in April, and 

 ■ometimes not till September. 



Oovemment and Virtiies,—Thej are martial plants, hot 

 and astringent ; the juice, or a strong decoction, is good 

 to stop efi'usion of blood in a very safe manner. The seed, 

 which is the best part that is used, is drying and binding, 

 of service in all kinds of fluxes and hemorrhages, either 

 from the bowels or any other part ; they help the inconti- 

 nenoe of urine, and the making bloody urine. They are 

 also alexipharmic; and good in pestilential fevers; they re- 

 ttst poison* And the bites and stmgs of venomous creatorea 



