28 



THE COMPLETE HERBAL 



also stays the overflowing of the women's 

 reds, as the white Elites stays the whites 

 in women. It is an excellent secret ; you 

 cannot well fail in the use. They are all 

 under the dominion of Venus. 



There is another sort of wild Elites like 

 the other wild kinds, but have long and 

 spiky heads of greenish seeds, seeming by ' 

 the thick setting together to be all seed. 



This sort the fishers are delighted with, I 

 and it is good and usual bait; for fishes 

 will bite fast enough at them, if you have 

 wit enough to catch them when they bite. 



BORAGE AND BUGLOSS. 



THESE are so well known to the inhabi- 

 tants in every garden that I hold it needless 

 to describe them. 



To these I may add a third sort, which 

 is not so common, nor yet so well known, 

 and therefore I shall give you its name and 

 description. 



It is called Langue de Bceuf; but why 

 then should they call one herb by the name 

 of Bugloss, and another by the name Langue 

 de Bceuf? it is some question to me, seeing 

 one signifies Ox-tongue in Greek, and the 

 other signifies the same in French. 



Descript^} The leaves whereof are smaller 

 than those of Bugloss but much rougher; 

 the stalks rising up about a foot and a half 

 high, and is most commonly of a red colour; 

 the flowers stand in scaly round heads, 

 being composed of many small yellow 

 flowers not much unlike to those of Dan- 

 delion, and the seed flieth away in down 

 as that doth ; you may easily know the 

 flowers by their taste, for they are very 

 bitter. 



Place.] It grows wild in many places 

 of this land, and may be plentifully found 

 near London, as between Rotherhithe and 

 Deptford, by the ditch side. Its virtues 

 are held to be the same with Borage and 

 Bugloss, only this is somewhat hotter. 



Time.~] They flower in June and July, 

 and the seed is ripe shortly after. 



Government and virtuesJ] They are all 

 three herbs of Jupiter and under Leo, all 

 great cordials, and great strengthened of 

 nature. The leaves and roots are to very 

 good purpose used in putrid and pestilential 

 fevers, to defend the heart, and help to 

 resist and expel the poison, or the venom 

 of other creatures : the seed is of the like 

 effect ; and the seed and leaves are good 

 to increase milk in women's breasts; the 

 leaves, flowers, and seed, all or any of 

 them, are good to expel pensiveness and 

 melancholy; it helps to clarify the blood, 

 and mitigate heat in fevers. The juice 

 made into a syrup prevails much to all 

 the purposes aforesaid, and isput, with other 

 cooling, opening and cleansing herbs to 

 open obstructions, and help the yellow jaun- 

 dice, and mixed with Fumitory, to cool 

 cleanse, and temper the blood thereby ; it 

 helps the itch, ringworms and tetters, or 

 other spreading scabs or sores. The flowers 

 candied or made into a conserve, are help- 

 ful in the former cases, but are chiefly used 

 as a cordial, and are good for those that 

 are weak in long sickness, and to comfort 

 the heart and spirits of those that are in a 

 consumption, or troubled with often swoon- 

 ings, or passions of the heart. The distilled 

 water is no less effectual to all the purposes 

 aforesaid, and helps the redness and inflam- 

 mations of the eyes, being washed there- 

 with; the herb dried is never used, but the 

 green; yet the ashes thereof boiled in 

 mead, or honied water, is available against 

 the inflammations and ulcers in the mouth 

 or throat, to gargle it therewith; the roots 

 of Bugloss are effectual, being made into 

 a licking electuary for the cough, and to 

 condensate thick phlegm, and the rheuma- 

 tic distillations upon the lungs. 



BLUE-BOTTLE. 



IT is called Syanus, 1 suppose from the 



