Government and virtues.] Mars owns the plant, and manifest to the world, that though it may hurt your finger, it will help your body; for I fancy it much for the ensuing virtues. Pliny and Dioscorides write, That the leaves and roots thereof taken in drink, help those that have a crick in their neck; whereby they cannot turn their neck but their whole body must turn also (sure they do not mean those that have got a crick in their neck by being under the hangman’s hand.) Galen saith, that the root and leaves hereof are of a healing quality, and good for such persons as have their bodies drawn together by some spasm or convulsion, as it is with children that have the rickets.
DRAGONS.
They are so well known to every one that plants them in their gardens, they need no description; if not, let them look down to the lower end of the stalks, and see how like a snake they look.
Government and virtues.] The plant is under the dominion of Mars, and therefore it would be a wonder if it should want some obnoxious quality or other: In all herbs of that quality, the safest way is either to distil the herb in an alembick, in what vehicle you please, or else to press out the juice, and distil that in a glass still, in sand. It scours and cleanses the internal parts of the body mightily, and it clears the external parts also, being externally applied, from freckles, morphew, and sun-burning: Your best way to use it externally, is to mix it with vinegar; an ointment of it is held to be good in wounds and ulcers; it consumes cankers, and that flesh growing in the nostrils, which they call Polypus: Also the distilled water being dropped into the eyes, takes away spots there, or the pin and web, and mends the dimness of sight; it is excellently good against pestilence and poison. Pliny and Dioscorides affirm, that no serpent will meddle with him that carries this herb about him.
THE ELDER TREE.
I hold it needless to write any description of this, since every boy that plays with a pop-gun will not mistake another tree instead of Elder: I shall therefore in this place only describe the Dwarf-Elder, called also Dead-wort, and Wall-wort.
THE DWARF-ELDER.
Descript.] This is but an herb every year, dying with his stalks to the ground, and rising afresh every Spring, and is like unto the Elder both in form and quality, rising up with square, rough, hairy stalks, four feet high, or more sometimes. The winged leaves are somewhat narrower than the Elder, but else like them. The flowers are white with a dash of purple, standing in umbels, very like the Elder also, but more sweet is scent; after which come small blackish berries, full of juice while they are fresh, wherein is small hard kernels, or seed. The root doth creep under the upper crust of the ground, springing in divers places, being of the bigness of one’s finger or thumb sometimes.
Place.] The Elder-tree grows in hedges, being planted there to strengthen the fences and partitions of ground, and to hold the banks by ditches and water-courses.
The Dwarf Elder grows wild in many places of England, where being once gotten into a ground, it is not easily gotten forth again.