For Stars neglected fatal oft we find,
The Gods to their dominion have assign’d
The products of our earth and labours of mankind.”
Michael Drayton, in whose time the doctrine of planetary influence on plants was generally accepted, says, in reference to the longevity of antediluvian men:—
“Besides, in medicine simples had the power
That none need then the planetary hour
To helpe their working, they so juiceful were.”
Culpeper, who was a profound believer in astrology, has given at the commencement of his ‘British Herbal and Family Physician,’ a list of some five hundred plants, and the names of the Planets which govern them; and in his directions as to the plucking of leaves for medical purposes, the old herbalist and physician remarks:—“Such as are astrologers (and indeed none else are fit to make physicians) such I advise: let the planet that governs the herb be angular, and the stronger the better; if they can, in herbs of Saturn, let Saturn be in the ascendant; in the herb of Mars, let Mars be in the mid-heaven, for in those houses they delight; let the Moon apply to them by good aspect, and let her not be in the houses of her enemies; if you cannot well stay till she apply to them, let her apply to a Planet of the same triplicity; if you cannot meet that time neither, let her be with a fixed Star of their nature.”
The classification of Plants under the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and the Moon, appears to have been made according to the Signatures or outward appearances of the plants themselves. The stalks, stems, branches, roots, foliage, flowers, odour, taste, native places, death, and medical virtues, were also considered; and, according to the character of the plant thus deduced, it was placed under the government of the particular Planet with which it was considered to be most in consonance.
Plants allotted to Saturn had their Leaves: hairy, hard, dry, parched, coarse, and of ill-favoured appearance. Flowers: Unprepossessing, gloomy, dull, greenish, faded or dirty white, pale red, invariably hirsute, prickly, and disagreeable. Roots: Spreading widely in the earth and rambling around in discursive fashion. Odour: Fœtid, putrid, muddy.