OTTLPIPEB'B COMPLETE UERBIX. 231 



Tiwie. — Its blossoms appear in April and May, and the 

 fruit ripens in September and October. 



Oovm-nmerU and Virtue*, — The fruit is Saturn's. It stays 

 womens' looginga. A plaster made of the fruit dried be- 

 fore they are rotten, and other convenient things, and ap- 

 plied to the reins of the back, stops miscarriage in preg- 

 nant women. They are very powerful to stay fluxes of 

 blood or humours in men or women ; the leaves also have 

 this quality. The fruit, if eaten by pregnant women, stays 

 their longings for unusual meats. The decoction of the 

 fruit is good to gargle the mouth, throat, and teeth, when 

 there are any defluctions of blood to stay it, or of humours, 

 which causes the pains and swellings. It is a good bath 

 for women to sit over, whose courses flow too abundantly ; 

 or for bleeding piles. If a poultice or plaster be made with 

 dried medlars, beaten and mixed with the juice of red 

 roses, whereunto a few cloves and nutmegs may be added, 

 and a little red coral also, and applied to the stomach that 

 is given to loathing of meat, it will effectually help. The 

 dried leaves in powder strewed on fresh wounds, restrains 

 the blood, and heals up (quickly. The Medlar-stones made 

 into powder, and drank in wine, wherein some parsley- 

 roots are infused all night, or a little boiled, breaks the 

 atone in the kidneys, and helps to expel it 



MELILOT.— C Trifolium Melilotut.) 



Called alao King^s-Clover. 



Detcrip, — The Melilot has a large, woody, spreadinff 

 white root, from which spring many slender channelled 

 smooth stalks, two or three feet high, having at every joint 

 three oblong, round-pointed green leaves, set together on 

 one footstalk, serrateii about the edges. The flowers grow 

 on long spikee, and are of a yellow colour ; succeeded by a 

 rough round pod. The whole plan^ but especially the 

 flowers, hai« a strong pleasant smell. 



Place, — it grows frequently among com, and in hedges. 



Time, — It flowers in June and July. The leaves and 

 flowers are used. 



OovernmerU cmd Virtuss. — Melilot, boiled in wine, and 

 applied, softens all hard tumours and inflammations in the 

 eyes, or other parts of the body, as the fundament and 

 prirj parts of men or women ; and sometimes the yolk of 

 a FQMted egg, or flne flour, or poppy seed, or endive, is 

 added onto it. It helps spreading ulcers in the head if 



