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KALE

(BRASSICA OLERACEA)

Thoroughwax, or Thorough Leaf

DESCRIPTION: Kale, whose lower leaves [are] of a bluish colour. The flowers are small and yellow, standing in tufts at the heads of the branches.

PLACE: [Mostly cultivated.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: [It is] under the influence of Saturn. Kale is of singular good use for all sorts of bruises and wounds either inward or outward; and old ulcers and sores likewise, if the decoction of the herb with water and wine be drank, and the place washed therewith, or the juice of the green herb bruised, or boiled, either by itself, or with other herbs, in oil or hog’s grease, to be made into an ointment to serve all the year. The decoction of the herb, or powder of the dried herb, taken inwardly, and the same, or the leaves bruised, and applied outwardly, is singularly good for all ruptures and burstings, especially in [young] children. Being applied with a little flour and wax to children’s navels that stick forth, it helps them.

MODERN USES: There is no doubt that the many varieties and genetic variations of this large group of mustard family members have evolved greatly in cultivation since Culpeper’s time. Brassica oleracea, from which kale derives, includes cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, among others. Aside from the obvious nutritional benefits, these vegetables contain compounds that are believed to prevent or control cancer over the long term.

 

KIDNEYWORT

(UMBILICUS RUPESTRIS)

Wall Pennyroyal, Wall Pennywort

DESCRIPTION: It has many thick, flat, and round leaves growing from the root, every one having a long footstalk, fastened underneath, from among which arise tender, smooth, hollow stalks half a foot high, bearing a number of flowers, set round about a long spike one above another, which are hollow and like a little bell of a whitish green colour.

PLACE: It grows plentifully upon stone and mud walls, upon rocks also, and in stony places upon the ground. [Native from Greece to the United Kingdom, and from the Iberian Peninsula to North Africa.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Venus challenges the herb under Libra. The juice or the distilled water being drank, is very effectual for all inflammations and unnatural heats, to cool a fainting hot stomach, a hot liver, or the bowels: the herb, juice, or distilled water thereof, outwardly applied, heals pimples. The said juice or water helps to heal sore kidneys, torn or fretted by the stone, or exulcerated [sore, inflamed] within; it also provokes urine, is available for the dropsy, and helps to break the stone. Being used as a bath, or made into an ointment, it cools the painful piles or hemorrhoidal veins. It is no less effectual to give ease to the pains of the gout, the sciatica, and helps the kernels or knots in the neck or throat, called the king’s evil [unusual swelling of lymph nodes or scrofula]: healing kibes and chilblains if they be bathed with the juice, or anointed with ointment made thereof, and some of the skin of the leaf upon them: it is also used in green wounds to stay the blood, and to heal them quickly.

MODERN USES: Little if ever used today. Formerly, fresh bruised kidneywort leaves were applied to wounds. Between 1849 and 1855, several English practitioners extolled the herb for the treatment of epilepsy, but it was then found to be of no value and the treatment was discredited.

 

KNAPWEED

(CENTAUREA NIGRA)

DESCRIPTION: The common sort hereof has many long and somewhat dark green leaves, sometimes a little rent or torn on both sides in two or three places, and somewhat hairy; amongst which arises a long round stalk, four or five feet high, whereof stand great scaly green heads, and from the middle of them [a head of] dark purplish red [flowers].

PLACE: It grows in most fields and meadows, and about their borders and hedges, and in many waste grounds. [Native to Europe, elsewhere naturalized and weedy.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Saturn challenges the herb for his own. This Knapweed helps to stay fluxes, both of blood at the mouth or nose, or other outward parts, and those veins that are inwardly broken, or inward wounds, as also the fluxes of the belly. It stays distillation of thin and sharp humours from the head upon the stomach and lungs. It is good for those that are bruised by any fall, blows or otherwise, and is profitable for those that are bursten, and have ruptures, by drinking the decoction of the herb and roots in wine, and applying the same outwardly to the place. It is singularly good in all running sores, cancerous and fistulous, drying up of the moisture, and healing them up so gently, without sharpness. It doth the like to running sores or scabs of the head or other parts. It is of special use for the soreness of the throat, swelling of the uvula and jaws, and excellently good to stay bleeding, and heals up all green wounds.

MODERN USES: The root and seeds of this and other Centaurea species (such as Centaurea scabiosa) were used as diuretics and diaphoretics (to break fevers). The leaves were used to treat wounds. Knapweed is seldom used today, though anti-bacterial activity has been described.

 

KNOTGRASS

(POLYGONUM AVICULARE)

Prostrate Knotweed

It is generally known so well that it needs no description.

PLACE: It grows in by the highway sides, and by foot-paths in fields; as also by the sides of old walls. [A weed native to Europe and found throughout North America, temperate South America, and cooler regions of southern Africa].

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Saturn seems to me to own the herb, and yet some hold the Sun; out of doubt ’tis Saturn. The juice of the common kind of Knotgrass is most effectual to stay bleeding of the mouth, being drank in steeled or red wine; and the bleeding at the nose, to be applied to the forehead or temples, or to be squirted up into the nostrils. It is no less effectual to cool and temper the heat of the blood and stomach, and to stay any flux of the blood and humours, as lasks [diarrhea], bloody-flux [dysentery], and women’s courses. It is singularly good to provoke urine, help the strangury [painful, frequnt urination], and allays the heat that comes thereby; and is powerful by urine to expel the gravel or stone in the kidneys and bladder, a dram of the powder of the herb being taken in wine for many days together. Being boiled in wine and drank, it is profitable to those that are stung or bitten by venomous creatures, and very effectual to stay all defluxions of rheumatic humours upon the stomach, and kills worms in the belly or stomach, quiets inward pains that arise from the heat, sharpness and corruption of blood and choler [bile]. The distilled water hereof taken by itself or with the powder of the herb or seed, is very effectual to all the purposes aforesaid, and is accounted one of the most sovereign remedies to cool all manner of inflammations, breaking out through heat, hot swellings and imposthumes [abscesses], gangrene and fistulous cankers, or foul filthy ulcers, being applied or put into them; but especially for all sorts of ulcers and sores happening in the private parts of men and women. It helps all fresh and green wounds, and speedily heals them. It is very prevalent for broken joints and ruptures.

MODERN USES: Knotgrass was historically used as an astringent for diarrhea, dysentery, and hemorrhaging (such as nosebleeds), but it is little used today. However, as it is a widespread weed in Asia, Korean and Chinese scientists have explored bioactive compounds in the plant and its potential to treat arthritis and gout. Other studies described pharmacological effects including antiobesity, antioxidant, anticancer, antihypertensive, bronchodilation, and diuretic activity effects.