1st. Such as grow upon dry grounds will keep better than such as grow on moist.
2dly, Such herbs as are full of juice, will not keep so long as such as are drier.
3dly. Such herbs as are well dried, will keep longer than such as are slack dried. Yet you may know when they are corrupted, by their loss of colour, or smell, or both; and if they be corrupted, reason will tell you that they must needs corrupt the bodies of those people that take them.
4. Gather all leaves in the hour of that planet that governs them.
CHAPTER II.
Of Flowers.
1. The flower, which is the beauty of the plant, and of none of the least use in physick, grows yearly, and is to be gathered when it is in its prime.
2. As for the time of gathering them, let the planetary hour, and the planet they come of, be observed, as we shewed you in the foregoing chapter: as for the time of the day, let it be when the sun shine upon them, that so they may be dry; for, if you gather either flowers or herbs when they are wet or dewy, they will not keep.
3. Dry them well in the sun, and keep them in papers near the fire, as I shewed you in the foregoing chapter.
4. So long as they retain the colour and smell, they are good; either of them being gone, so is the virtue also.