244 CDLPEPIR'S complete HERBAlb 



Mushroom is distinguishable from the others, by its im- 

 parting an agreeable smell. As it increases in size, the 

 fleshy colour underneath turns redder, and the edges be- 

 come a blackish red, but without losing or changing its 

 fleshy colour within. 



Place, — In the field it owes its origin to the putrefaction 

 of earth or dung. From this beginning they discover them- 

 eelves under the form of a white, mouldy substance, called 



Xwn, which produces numerous white knots, or embryo 

 , Qts, gradually increasing to the perfect Mushroom. 



Time, — In fields it is of very short duration and growth 

 at particular times ; but in gardens it is propagated from 

 rotten horse dung and putrid moist litter all the year. 



Government and Virtues. — Mushrooms are under Mer- 

 furv in Aries. Boasted and applied in a poultice, or boiled 

 with white lily roots, and linseed, in milk, they ripen boils 

 and abscesses better than any preparation that can be 

 made. Their poultices are of service in quinsies, and In- 

 flammatonr swellings. Inwardly, they are unwholesome, 

 and unfit lor the strongest constitutions. 



MUSTARD (BLACK.}— (Sinapie Nigra,) 



Descrip. — ^The lower leaves are large and rough ; the 

 stalk grows four or five feet high, smooth, branched, and 

 with smaller leaves than those oelow, thick, smooth, and 

 less cut in, a little serrated about the edges, and hanging 

 down on long footstalks. The flowers are small and yel- 

 low, of four leaves each, set many together, and flowering 

 by degrees ; before they have done flowering, the spike of 

 the seed-vessel is extended to a great length ; they are 

 squarish, clasping close to the stalks, and sharp-pointed at 

 the end, full of round, dark, brown seed, of a hot biting 

 taste. The root is whitish, branched, and full of fibrea 



Place. — It grows frequently in waste plavM^ and among 

 rubbish ; and is frequently sown in gardena 



Time. — It flowers in June. 



Government and Virtues. — It is an excellent sauce for 

 clarifying the blood, and for weak stomachs, being an herb 

 of Mars, but unfit for choleric people ; it also sti^ngthens 

 the heart and resists poison. Jjet such as have weak sto- 

 machs take of Mustard-seed and Cinnamon, one drana ea^^u, 

 beaten into powder, with half a dram of powdered mastic 

 and gum-arabic dissolved in rose-water, made into troches 

 of hiUf a dram each in weight, one of these troches to be 



