22 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
AN OLD BRITISH HERBAL. 
By Tos. STEBL. 
By the kindness of my friend, Mr. C. Thackeray, I have 
had an opportunity of perusing a ‘reprint of “Culpeper’s Bri- 
tish Herbal.” The original was published somewhere about 
1655 by Nicholas Culpeper, who is described as a “Student of 
Physic and Astrology.” The work is illustrated with coloured 
plates of a high order of excellence, from which most of the 
plants dealt with could be readily identified. In reading the 
book one hesitates whether to wonder most why any sickness 
should still exist, so numerous are the plants cited as certain 
cures for every imaginable ailment, or. at the child-like credulity 
which accepted without question statements attributing marvel- 
lous healing properties to a multitude of plants, when common 
experience must have proved the fallacy of these statements. 
However, time has sifted out much of the chaff, and now very 
few of the plants in question are used in medical practice. Cul- 
peper wrote several other works from which some of the quo- 
tations following are taken. 
Rosa Sons oR SUNDEW. 
Description—It hath divers small, round, hollow leaves, 
greenish, but full of red hairs, which make them seem red, each 
standing upon his own footstalk, reddish and hairy. The leaves 
are continually moist in the hottest day, yea, the hotter the sun 
shines on them, the moister they are, with a sliminess that will 
rope, as we say, the small hairs always holding this moisture. 
Among these leaves rise up slender stalks, reddish also, three 
or four fingers high, bearing small white knobs one above an- 
other, which are flowers; after which come heads with small 
seeds. The root is a few small hairs. 
Place—It groweth usually in bogs and wet places, and 
sometimes in moist woods. 
Time.—Ilt flowereth in June, and then the leaves are fittest 
to be. gathered. 
Government and Virtue—The sun rules it, and it is under 
the sign Cancer. Rosa Solis is accounted good to help those 
that have a salt rheum distilling on the lungs, which causeth 
consumption, and therefore the distilled water in wine is profit- 
able for such to drink, which water will be of a good yellow 
colour. ‘The same water is held to be good for phthisics, wheez- 
ings, shortness of breath, and cough; also to heal ulcers in the 
lungs; and it comforteth the heart and fainting spirit. The 
leaves outwardly applied to the skin will raise blisters, which 
