Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or, A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp / a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes & fruites for meate or sauce vsed with vs, and, an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land, together with the right orderinge, planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues

by John Parkinson

3. Buphthalmum vulgare. Common Oxe eye.

This Oxe eye riseth vp with hard round stalkes, a foote and a halfe high, hauing many winged leaues vpon them, made of diuers long and something broad leaues, snipt about the edges, set together somewhat like vnto Tansie, but smaller, and not so much winged: the flowers stand at the toppes of the stalkes, of a full yellow colour, both the outer leaues and the middle thrum, and not altogether so large as the last: the rootes of this kinde perish euery yeare, and require a new sowing againe.

The Place.

The first groweth in diuers places of Austria, Bohemia, and those parts, it hath beene likewise brought out of Spaine. The second in Prouence, a country in France. The last in diuers places, as well of Austria as Morauia, and about Mentz and Norimberg, as Clusius setteth downe. We haue them in our Gardens, but the first is of the greatest respect and beauty.

The Time.

The first flowreth betimes, oftentimes in March, or at the furthest in Aprill; the seede is ripe in May, and must be quickly gathered, lest it bee lost. The other two flower not vntill Iune.

The Names.

The first is called Buphthalmum of Dodonæus, Pseudohelleborus of Matthiolus, Helleborus niger ferulaceus Theophrasti by Lobel, of some others Elleborus niger verus, vsing it for the true blacke Ellebor, but it is much differing, as well in face as properties. Of others Sesamoides minus. Some haue thought it to be a yellow Anemone, that haue looked on it without further iudgement, and by that name is most vsually knowne to most of our English Gentlewomen that know it. But it may most fitly be called a Buphthalmum, as Dodonæus doth, and Hispanicum or Austriacum, for distinctions sake. We doe most vsually call it Helleborus niger ferulaceus, as Lobel doth: Bauhinus calleth it Helleborus niger tenuifolius Buphthalmi flore. The second is called Buphthalmum Narbonense: In English, The French, or lesser Oxe eye, as the first is called, The great Oxe eye. The last, The common Oxe eye.

The Vertues.

The first hath been vsed in diuers places for the true blacke Ellebor, but now is sufficiently knowne to haue been an errour; but what Physicall property hath, other then Matthiolus hath expressed, to be vsed as Setterwort for cattell, when they rowell them, to put or draw the rootes hereof through the hole they make in the dewe lappe, or other places, for their coughes or other diseases, I know not, or haue heard or read of any. The others likewise haue little or no vse in Physicke now a dayes that I know.