194 The 
BRa fsa To ER B ASL, 
hangs in long fine threads, and then bleached to 
a whitenefs. 
The virtues in medicine are very confiderable : 
for this purpofe the feeds alone are ufed. 
They are emollient and diuretick. A tea, 
made by pouring boiling water upon them un- 
bruifed, is pleafant, and is of excellent. fervice 
in diforders of the breaft and lungs. Ic alfo 
allays heat of urine, and brings away gravel. 
Outwardly it makes an excellent emollient fo- 
mentation ; and is an ingredient in many of the 
ointments, and other external remedies, in our 
difpenfatories. 
The oil, drawn from the bruifed feeds without 
heat, is excellent in diforders of the lungs, and 
in pleurifies and peripneumonies. ‘ 
Externally it is alfo an anodyne and refolvent 
in a great degree 5 indeed, fuperior to almoft any 
other oily medicine. : 
2. Great-flowered perennial Flax. 
Linum perenne flore majore. 
This is a wild Flax, very different from the 
common manured kind; being a hardy, peren- 
nial, and deep rooted plant. 
The root is long, thick, woody, and hung 
with many fibres. 
The ftalks are numerous, round, upright, hard, 
and a foot and half high: they are brown and 
brittle; and are feldom at all branched. 
The leaves are oblong, narrow, fharp-pointed, 
and of a pale green: they are very numerous» 
and are placed irregularly on the ftalks. 
The flowers grow in a thick tuft at the tops 
of the branches: they are large, and of a beau- 
tiful blue. 
The feed-veffel is very large, and the feeds alfo 
large. 
It is frequent on the borders of fie'ds in many 
parts of England, and flowers in July, 
Ray calls it Linum fylveftre ceruleum perenne 
eretlius fiore et capitulo majore. 
The flower is fometimes white. 
3. Procumbent Flax with fmall flowers. 
Linum procumbens flore minore. 
The root is long, thick, and brown: it is 
furnifhed with many fibres, and endures from 
year to year, 
The ftalks are numerous, round, flender, and 
weak: they lie in part upon the ground, and in 
part rife up. 
The leaves are long, narrow, and of a bluith 
green; and they ftand irregularly, and in great 
numbers, on the ftalks, 
The flowers ftand on the tops, and on flender 
footftalks rifing from the bofoms of the upper 
leaves: they are fmaller than thofe of the common 
Slax, but of the fame celeftial blue. 
The feed-veffels are fmall, hard, brown, and 
fharp-pointed ; and the feeds are brown. 
It is found in barren places in our fouthern 
counties ; and flowers in July. 
Ray calls ic Linum filveftre perenne procumbens 
flare et capitulo minore. 
4. Narrow-leaved purple Flax. 
Linum angupifolium Slore purpurafcente. 
The root is long, flender, and furnifhed with 
many fibres. : 
The flalks are numerous, round, flender, and 
of a pale green: they are very upright, and full 
of leaves, placed with perfect irregularity from 
the bottom to the top. 
Thefe are long, narrow, and fharp-pointed : 
they have no footftalks, and are of a pale green: 
The flowers are large, and very beautiful; 
they ftand at the tops of the ftalks, and their 
colour is a pale purple. 
The feed veffel is fmall, and the feeds are 
oval, and of a pale brown. 
It is found in many parts of England near the 
fea-coaft ; and flowers in June. 
The flowers vary extremely, in their tinge of 
purple: fometimes they are deeper ; fometimes 
paler; and fometimes nearly white: the colour is 
fometimes diffufed all over them; and in others 
it is only laid on in lines, or ftreaks, toward the 
bottom of the petals, which grow fainter, and 
die off as they come nearer the tips. 
C. Bauhine calls it Linum Lylveftre anguftifolium 
Hloribus dilute purpurafcentibus five carneis. 
5. Mountain Flax, 
Linum foliis brevibus. 
This is a fingular plant ; very unlike the other 
fpecies of flax, but properly and truly one of the 
kind. 
The root is long, 
with many fibres. 
The ftalks are numerous, round, firm, up- 
right, and ten inches high: they have no 
branches till toward the top, where they divide, 
by twos, into a large, {preading head. 
The leaves are fhort and {mall : they are of a 
dufky green, and of a firm fubftance. 
The flowers are {mall and white; and the 
{eed-veflels are large, and full of oval feeds, 
Tt is common on dry paftures, and flowers in 
July. 
C. Bauhine calls it Linum pratenfe 
ONIZUIS. 
mon people call it Purging flax, 
and Mill mountain. 
flender, white, and hung 
It is a great medicine with the country people 
for many diforders, the theumatifm, dropfies, and 
other complaints arifing from obftruétions, 
They give it boiled in ale. A fmall handful, 
boiled in a pint of that liquor, is a dofe for a 
ftrong man. It always operates violently by 
ftool, and not unfrequently alfo by vomit. 
Diy ye: 
fofetis 
Others, Linum catharticum. Our com- — 
Mountain flax, 
