Читать книгу The Complete Herbal - Nicholas Culpeper - Страница 88

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Descript.] This has divers weak but rough stalks, half a yard long, leaning downward, but set with winged leaves, longer and more pointed than those of Lintels, and whitish underneath; from the tops of these stalks arise up other slender stalks, naked without leaves unto the tops, where there grow many small flowers in manner of a spike, of a pale reddish colour with some blueness among them; after which rise up in their places, round, rough, and somewhat flat heads. The root is tough, and somewhat woody, yet lives and shoots a-new every year.

Place.] It grows upon hedges, and sometimes in the open fields, in divers places of this land.

Time.] They flower all the months of July and August, and the seed ripen in the mean while.

Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Venus. It has power to rarify and digest, and therefore the green leaves bruised and laid as a plaister, disperse knots, nodes, or kernels in the flesh; and if, when dry, it be taken in wine, it helps the stranguary; and being anointed with oil, it provokes sweat. It is a singular food for cattle, to cause them to give store of milk; and why then may it not do the like, being boiled in ordinary drink, for nurses.