AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 



77 



a number of pale yellow flowers, of a strong | or spots, applied of itself, or used with some 

 unpleasant scent, with deeper yellow mouths, powder of Lupines, 

 and blackish flat seed in round heads. 

 The root is somewhat woody and white, 

 especially the main downright one, with 



many fibres, abiding many years, shooting 

 forth roots every way round about, and 

 new branches every year. 



FLEA-WORT. 



Descript.~] ORDINARY Flea- wort rises 

 up with a stalk two feet high or more, full 

 of joints and branches on every side up to 

 the top, and at every joint two small, long, 



P/oce.] This grows throughout this land, \ and narrow whitish green leaves somewhat 

 both by the way sides and in meadows, as j hairy ; At the top of every branch stand 

 also by hedge-sides, and upon the sides of? divers small, short scaly, or chaffy heads 

 banks, and borders of fields. | out of which come forth small whitish 



Time.'] It flowers in Summer, and the \ yellow threads, like to those of the Plan- 

 seed is ripe usually before the end of I tain herbs, which are the bloomings of 



* flowers. The seed inclosed in these heads 

 is small and shining while it is fresh, very 

 like unto fleas both for colour and bigness, 

 but turning black when it grows old. The 

 root is not long, but white, hard and woody. 



August. 



rovernment and virtues. 1 



Mars owns the : 



herb : In Sussex we call it Gall wort, and : 

 lay it in our chicken's water to cure them of; 

 the gall ; it relieves them when they are 



drooping. This is frequently used to spend | perishing every year, and rising again of 

 the abundance of those watery humours by t its own seed for divers years, if it be suffered 

 urine, which cause the dropsy. The decoc- \ to shed : The whole plant is somewhat 



tion of the herb, both leaves and flowers, 

 in wine, taken and drank, doth somewhat 

 move the belly downwards, opens obstruc- 

 tions of the liver, and helps the yellow 

 jaundice ; expels poison, provokes women's 

 courses, drives forth the dead child, and 



whitish and hairy, smelling somewhat like 



rosin. 



There is another sort hereof, differing not 

 from the former in the manner of growing, 

 but only that the stalk and branches being 

 somewhat greater, do a little more bow 



after-birth. The distilled water of the herb * down to the ground : The leaves are some- 

 and flowers is effectual for all the same pur- \ what greater, the heads somewhat less, the 

 poses; being drank with a dram of the j seed alike; and the root and leaves abide 

 powder of the seeds of bark or the roots of \ all winter, and perish not as the former. 

 Wall-wort, and a little Cinnamon, for certain i Place.'] The first grows only in gardens, 



days together, it is held a singular remedy 

 for the dropsy. The juice of the herb, or 

 the distilled water, dropped into the eyes, ; 

 is a certain remedy for all heat, inflamrna- j 

 tion, and redness in them. The juice or 

 water put into foul ulcers, whether they be 

 cancerous or fistulous, with tents rolled 

 therein, or parts washed and injected there- 

 with, cleanses them thoroughly from the 

 bottom, and heals them up safely. The 

 same juice or water also cleanses the skin 

 wonderfully of all sorts of deformity, as 

 leprosy, morphew, scurf, wheals, pimples, 



the seccond plentifully in fields that are near 

 the sea. 



Time.'] They flower in July, or there- 

 abouts' 



Government and virtues."] The herb is 

 cold, and dry, and saturnine. I suppose 

 it obtained the name of Flea-wort, because 

 the seeds are so like Fleas, The seeds fried, 

 and taken, stays the flux or lask of the 

 belly, and the corrosions that come by rea- 

 son of hot choleric, or sharp and malignant 

 humours, or by too much purging of any 

 violent medicine, as Scammony, or the 



