[E196] "Betanie." Lat. betonica, said by Pliny to have been first called Vettonica, from the Vettones, a people of Spain.
[E197] "Bleets." The name of some pot-herb which Evelyn in Acetaria takes to be the "Good Henry," and remarks of it that, "'tis insipid enough." βλιτον [Greek: bliton] = insipid. In Lyte's Dodoens, p. 547, are given three kinds of Blitte or Bleet, and the French name is said to be Pourrée rouge. "Suæda maritima, or sea-blite, belongs to the goose-foot tribe; the good-king-Henry, or Chenopodium bonus-Henricus, is of the same tribe. See Flowers of the Field, by C. A. Johns."—Note by Rev. W. W. Skeat.
"Beets," although joined here with "bleets," no doubt refers to the common beetroot, Beta vulgaris, Linn. Gerard had the "White or Yellow Beete" in his garden.—Note by Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S.
[E198] "Bloodwoort," called also Bloody-dock, from its red veins and stems. Rumex sanguineus, L. Called also Walwort and Danewort in Lyte's Dodoens, 1578, p. 380, who says that the "fumes of Walwort burned, driueth away Serpentes and other venemous beastes."
[E199] "The rootes of Borage and Buglosse soden tender and made in a Succade, doth ingender good blode, and doth set a man in a temporaunce."—A. Boorde's Dyetary, E.E.T. Soc. ed. Furnivall, p. 278.
[E200] "Burnet, a term formerly applied to a brown cloth, Fr. brunette, It. brunetta, and given to the plant so called from its brown flowers."—Dr. Prior, Popular Names of British Plants, 1870. Called also Pimpinell.—Lyte's Dodoens, 1578, p. 138.
[E201] "Burrage." Fr. bourache, M. Lat. borago. Apuleius says that its original name was "corrago, quia cordis affectibus medetur," a word that the herbalists suppose to have become, by change of c to b, borrago. See A. Boorde's Dyetary, ed. Furnivall, pp. 278-280.
[E202] "Clarie." M. Lat. sclarea, from clarus = clear, and prefix ex. Called by the apothecaries clear-eye, translated into Oculus Christi, Godes-eie, and See-bright, and eye-salves made of it. Salvia Sclarea, Linn. "Called in French Ornale or Fonte-bonne; it maketh men dronke and causeth headache, and therefore some Brewers do boyle it with their Bier in steede of Hoppes."—Lyte's Dodoens, ed. 1578, p. 253.
[E203] "Coleworts." Dioscorides (quoted in Cogan's Haven of Health, p. 49) says (lib. 2, cap. 113) that "if they be eaten last after meats, they preserue the stomacke from surfetting, and the head from drunkennesse. Yea some write, that if one would drinke much wine for a wager, and not be drunke, but to haue also a good stomacke to meate, that he should eate before the banquet raw Cabage leaues with Vinegar so much as he list, and after the banquet to eate againe foure or fiue raw leaues, which practice is much vsed in Germanie.... The Vine and the Coleworts be so contrarie by nature that if you plant Coleworts neere to the rootes of the Vine, of it selfe it will flee from them. Therefore it is no maruaile if Colewortes be of such force against drunkennesse; But I trust no student will prooue this experiment, whether he may be drunken or not, if he eate Coleworte leaues before and after a feast."