The single kindes haue beene often found in some of the wooddy mountaines of Germany, as Clusius saith, but the double kindes are chiefly cherished in gardens.
The Time.
They flower not vntill May, and abide not for the most part when Iune is past, and in the meane time perfecteth their seede.
The Names.
Costæus doth call this plant Pothos of Theophrastus, which Gaza translateth Desiderium. Dalechampius vpon Athenæus, calleth it Diosanthos, or Iouis flos of Theophrastus, who in his sixth Booke and seuenth Chapter reckoneth them both, that is, Diosanthos and Pothos, to be Summer flowers, but seuerally. Dodonæus Leoherba, and Gesner Leontostomium. Fabius Columna in his Phytobasanos, vnto whom Clusius giueth the greatest approbation, referreth it to the Isopyrum of Dioscorides. All later Writers doe generally call it, eyther Aquileia, Aquilina, or Aquilegia; and we in English, generally (I thinke) through the whole Countrey, Colombines. Some doe call the Aquilegia rosea, Aquilegia stellata, The starre Colombine; because the leaues of the flowers doe stand so directly one by another, besides the doublenesse, that they somewhat represent eyther a Rose or a Starre, and thereupon they giue it the name eyther of a Starre or Rose.
| 1 | Aquilegia simplex. The single Colombine. |
| 2 | Aquilegia flore multiplici. The double Colombine. |
| 3 | Aquilegia versicolor. The party coloured Colombine. |
| 4 | Aquilegia inuersis corniculis. The double inuerted Colombine. |
| 5 | Aquilegia Rosea siue Stellata. The Rose or the Starre Colombine. |
| 6 | Thalictrum Hispanicum album. White Spanish tufts. |
The Vertues.
Some in Spaine, as Camerarius saith, vse to eate a peece of the roote hereof fasting, many dayes together, to helpe them that are troubled with the stone in the kidneyes. Others vse the decoction, of both herbe and roote in wine, with a little Ambargrise, against those kinds of swounings, which the Greekes call ἀδυναμία. The seede is vsed for the iaundise, and other obstructions of the liuer. Clusius writeth from the experience of Franciscus Rapard, a chiefe Physician of Bruges in Flanders, that the seede beaten and drunke is effectuall to women in trauell of childe, to procure a speedy deliuerie, and aduiseth a second draught thereof should be taken if the first succeede not sufficiently.