Place.] It is found wild in divers places of this land.
Time.] It flowers about June or July, and the seed is ripe in August.
Government and virtues.] The wild Rockets are forbidden to be used alone, in regard their sharpness fumes into the head, causing aches and pains therein, and are less hurtful to hot and choleric persons, for fear of inflaming their blood, and therefore for such we may say a little doth but a little harm, for angry Mars rules them, and he sometimes will be restive when he meets with fools. The wild Rocket is more strong and effectual to increase sperm and venerous qualities, whereunto all the seed is more effectual than the garden kind. It serves also to help digestion, and provokes urine exceedingly. The seed is used to cure the biting of serpents, the scorpion, and the shrew mouse, and other poisons, and expels worms, and other noisome creatures that breed in the belly. The herb boiled or stewed, and some sugar put thereto, helps the cough in children, being taken often. The seed also taken in drink, takes away the ill scent of the arm-pits, increases milk in nurses, and wastes the spleen. The seed mixed with honey, and used on the face, cleanses the skin from morphew, and used with vinegar, takes away freckles and redness in the face, or other parts; and with the gall of an ox, it mends foul scars, black and blue spots, and the marks of the small-pox.
WINTER-ROCKET, OR CRESSES.
Descript.] Winter-Rocket, or Winter-Cresses, hath divers somewhat large sad green leaves lying upon the ground, torn or cut in divers parts, somewhat like unto Rocket or turnip leaves, with smaller pieces next the bottom, and broad at the ends, which so abide all the Winter (if it spring up in Autumn, when it is used to be eaten) from among which rise up divers small round stalks, full of branches, bearing many small yellow flowers of four leaves a-piece, after which come small pods, with reddish seed in them. The root is somewhat stringy, and perishes every year after the seed is ripe.
Place.] It grows of its own accord in gardens and fields, by the way-sides, in divers places, and particularly in the next pasture to the Conduit-head behind Gray’s Inn, that brings water to Mr. Lamb’s conduit in Holborn.
Time.] It flowers in May, seeds in June, and then perishes.
Government and virtues.] This is profitable to provoke urine, to help stranguary, and expel gravel and stone. It is good for the scurvy, and found by experience to be a singularly good wound herb to cleanse inward wounds; the juice or decoction being drank, or outwardly applied to wash foul ulcers and sores, cleansing them by sharpness, and hindering or abating the dead flesh from growing therein, and healing them by their drying quality.