194 
The BRITISH HERBAL. 
II 
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. It 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 
ointment-, 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 pleurifics and peripneumonies. 
Kxternally it is alio an anodyne and refolvent 
in a great degree ; indeed, fuperior to aimoft any 
other oily medicine. 
2. Great-flowered perennial Flax. 
Li?ium perenne jiore 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 fl;alks are numerous, round, upright, hard, 
and a foot and half high : they are brown and 
brittle i 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-vefiel is very large, and the feeds alfo 
large. 
It is frequent on the borders of fields in many 
parts of England, and flowers in July. 
Ray calls it Linum fyhejlre caruleum perenne 
ere^ius Jiore et capkulo majore. 
The flower is fometimes white. 
3. Procumbent Flax with fmall flowers. 
Linton procumbens jiore minore. 
The root is long, thick, and brown : it is 
furniHicd with many fibres, and endures from 
year to year. 
The (lalks 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 bluifh 
green ; and they ft:and 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 
fax, but of the fame celefl:ial blue. 
The feed-vefl'els are fmall, hard, brown, and 
fliarp-pointed ; and the feeds are brown. 
It is found in barren places in our fouthern 
counties ; and flowers in July. 
Ray calls it Linum filvejlre perenne procumbens 
jiore et capitulo minore. 
4. Narrow-leaved purple Flax. 
Linum angujlifolium jiore purpurafcente. 
The root is long, flender, and furnilhed with 
many fibres. 
The flralks are numerous, round, flender, and 
of a pale green : they are very upright, and full 
of leaves, placed with perfeft irregularity from 
the bottom to the top. 
Thefe are long, narrow, and fharp-pointed : 
they have no footflalks, 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 veflel is fmall, and the feeds arc 
oval, and of a pale brown. 
It is found in many parrs nf Fn^hnd near the 
fea-coafl ; 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 
f.imetimes diifufed 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 fyhejtre angujlifolium 
Jloribus dilute purpurajcentibus Jive carneis. 
5. Mountain Flax. 
Linum foUis brevibus. 
This is a Angular plant ; very unlike the other 
fpecies of /^.v, but properly *nd truly one of the 
kind. 
The root is long, flender, white, and hung 
with many fibres. 
The fl:alks 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, fpreading head. 
The leaves are fhort and fmall : they are of a 
dufky green, and of a firm fubftance. 
The flowers are fmall and white -, and the 
feed-veflTels are large, and full of oval feeds. 
It is common on dry paftures, and flowers in 
J"iy. 
C. Bauhine calls it Linum fratenfe fiofcuUs 
exiguis. Others, Limim calharticum. Our com- 
mon people call it Pmjiiig flax. Mountain flax, 
and Mill mountain. 
It is a great medicine with the country people 
for many diforders, the rheumatifm, dropfies, and 
other complaints arifing from obftruftions. 
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. 
D I V I- 
