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PARSLEY

(PETROSELINUM CRISPUM)

This is so well known, that it needs no description.

PLACE: [Originates in gravelly soils, near water seepage in southern Europe from Spain to Turkey. Cultivated in northern European monastary herb gardens during the Middle Ages. Introduced to English gardens in 1548 and commonly known in England by the 1640s.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: It is under the dominion of Mercury; is very comfortable to the stomach; helps to provoke urine and women’s courses, to break wind both in the stomach and bowels, and doth a little open the body, but the root much more. It opens obstructions both of liver and spleen, and is therefore accounted one of the five opening roots. Galen commended it against the falling sickness, and to provoke urine mightily; especially if the roots be boiled, and eaten like Parsnips. The seed is effectual to provoke urine and women’s courses, to expel wind, to break the stone, and ease the pains and torments thereof. It is also effectual against the venom of any poisonous creature, and the danger that comes to them that have the lethargy, and is as good against the cough. The distilled water of Parsley is a familiar medicine with nurses to give their children when they are troubled with wind in the stomach or belly which they call the frets; and is also much available to them that are of great years. The leaves of Parsley laid to the eyes that are inflamed with heat, or swollen, doth much help them. If it be used with bread or meal; and being fried with butter, and applied to women’s breasts that are hard through the curdling of their milk, it abates the hardness quickly; and also takes away black and blue marks coming of bruises or falls.

MODERN USES: Fresh parsley leaves are a well-known garnish for food, often included as a breath freshener at the end of a meal. The whole fresh herb or a tea of the dried herb is traditionally used as a diuretic and treatment for kidney stones or other urinary tract calculi. The root is considered a mild diuretic for flushing the urinary tract. Parsley is also used as a carminative for dyspepsia and an anti-inflammatory for urinary complaints. CAUTION: The seeds can be irritating to mucus membranes. Some individuals may have rare allergic reactions to parsley.

 

PARSNIPS

(PASTINACA SATIVA)

The garden kind thereof is so well known (the root being commonly eaten) that I shall not trouble you with any description of it. But the wild kind [is] of more physical use . . . and the root is shorter, woodier, and not so fit to be eaten, and therefore more medicinal.

PLACE: Wild parsnip grows in fields, and waste places. [Native to much of western Europe; naturalized in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, North America, and temperate South America and South Africa.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: The garden Parsnips are under Venus. The garden Parsnip nourishes much, and is good and wholesome nourishment, but a little windy, whereby it is thought to procure bodily lust; but it fastens the body much, if much need. It is conducive to the stomach and kidneys, and provokes urine. But the wild Parsnips hath a cutting, attenuating, cleansing, and opening quality therein. It resists and helps the bitings of serpents, eases the pains and stitches in the sides, and dissolves wind both in the stomach and bowels, which is the cholic, and provokes urine. The root is often used, but the seed much more. The wild being better than the tame, shews Dame Nature to be the best physician.

MODERN USES: The edible root of the garden parsnip is found at most supermarkets. It is considered sweet, aromatic, and diuretic; rather than treating flatulence, it may induce it. The root of the wild parsnip (even though it is the same plant species) is considered acrid and may induce vomiting. CAUTION: Wild parsnip is high in phototoxic compounds known as furanocoumarins. Ingesting or handling the plant can cause photodermatitis or contact dermatitis.

 

PEACH TREE

(PRUNUS PERSICA)

PLACE: [Peach trees have been cultivated since ancient times. The first known cultivated peaches date from China over eight thousand years ago.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Lady Venus owns this tree, and by it opposes the ill effects of Mars, and indeed for children and young people, nothing is better to purge choler [bile] and the jaundice, than the leaves or flowers of this tree being made into a syrup or conserve. Let such as delight to please their lust regard the fruit; but such as have lost their health, and their children’s, let them regard what I say, they may safely give two spoonfuls of the syrup at a time; it is as gentle as Venus herself. The leaves bruised and laid on the belly, kill worms. The powder of them strewed upon fresh bleeding wounds stays their bleeding, and closes them up. The flowers steeped all night in a little wine standing warm, strained forth in the morning, and drank fasting, doth gently open the belly, and move it downward. The flowers made into a conserve, work the same effect. The liquor that dropped from the tree, being wounded, is given in the decoction of Coltsfoot, to those that are troubled with a cough or shortness of breath, by adding thereunto some sweet wine, and putting some saffron also therein. It is good for those that are hoarse, or have lost their voice; helps all defects of the lungs, and those that vomit and spit blood. The milk or cream of these kernels being drawn forth with some Vervain water and applied to the forehead and temples, doth much help to procure rest and sleep to sick persons wanting it. The oil drawn from the kernels, the temples being therewith anointed, doth the like. Being also anointed on the forehead and temples, it helps the migraine, and all other pains in the head. If the kernels be bruised and boiled in vinegar, until they become thick, and applied to the head, it marvelously procures the hair to grow again upon bald places, or where it is too thin.

MODERN USES: Peach pits and, more commonly, apricot pits, are famously the source of amygdalin and its analog, laetrile, developed in the 1920s and used controversially as an alternative cancer treatment. The flowers are a diuretic and used in traditional Chinese medicine as a purgative, increasing gastrointestinal motility; used also in cosmetics as an antioxidant to protect against skin damage. The leaves are considered to be demulcent, mildly sedative, diuretic, and expectorant, used as a folk medicine as Culpeper describes. Leaf extracts have been shown to have antidiabetic potential. However, most are content simply to eat the delicious fruit, which is high in antioxidant compounds and dietary fiber. CAUTION: The amygdalin in peach pits breaks down to hydrocyanic acid, which has the potential for cyanide-like toxicity.

 

PEAR TREE

(PYRUS COMMUNIS)

Pear Trees are so well known, that they need no description.

PLACE: [Pears are known to have occurred from Iran to the western coast of temperate Europe since prehistoric periods, and they have been cultivated since ancient times. Domestication occurred many centuries ago from China to the Middle East.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: The Tree belongs to Venus, and so doth the Apple tree. For their physical use they are best discerned by their taste. All the sweet and luscious sorts, whether manured or wild, do help to move the belly downwards, more or less. Those that are hard and sour, do, on the contrary, bind the belly as much, and the leaves do so also: Those that are moist do in some sort cool, but harsh or wild sorts much more, and are very good in repelling medicines; and if the wild sort be boiled with mushrooms, it makes them less dangerous. The said Pears boiled with a little honey, help much the oppressed stomach, as all sorts of them do, some more, some less: but the harsher sorts do cooler and bind, serving well to be bound to green wounds, to cool and stay the blood, and heal up the green wound without farther trouble, or inflammation, as Galen saith he hath found by experience. The wild Pears do sooner close up the lips of green wounds than others.

Schola Selerni advises to drink much wine after Pears, or else (say they) they are as bad as poison; nay, and they curse the tree for it too; but if a poor man find his stomach oppressed by eating Pears, it is but working hard, and it will do as well as drinking wine.

MODERN USES: Pears are enjoyed as a fruit. Aside from their food value, they are little used medicinally, though pear syrup has been used as a component in cough syrup.

 

PELLITORY-OF-THE-WALL

(PARIETARIA OFFICINALIS)

DESCRIPTION: It rises with brownish, red, tender, weak, clear, and almost transparent stalks, about two feet high, at the joints with the leaves from the middle of the stalk upwards, stand many small, pale, purplish flowers in hairy, rough husks.

PLACE: It grows wild, about the borders of fields, and by the sides of walls, and in waste places. [Native to much of western Europe and a weed in Great Britain; sometimes naturalized in North America and South America.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: It is under the dominion of Mercury. The dried herb Pellitory made up into an electuary with honey, or the juices of the herb, or the decoction thereof made up with sugar or honey, is a singular remedy for an old or dry cough, the shortness of breath, and wheezing in the throat. Three ounces of the juice thereof taken at a time, doth wonderfully help stopping of the urine, and to expel the stone or gravel in the kidneys or bladder, and is therefore usually put among other herbs used in clysters to mitigate pains in the back, sides, or bowels, proceeding of wind, stopping of urine, the gravel or stone, as aforesaid. If the bruised herb, sprinkled with some Muskadel, be warmed upon a tile, or in a dish upon a few quick coals in a chafing-dish, and applied to the belly, it works the same effect. The decoction of the herb being drank, eases pains of the mother, and brings down women’s courses: It also eases those griefs that arise from obstructions of the liver, spleen, and kidneys. The same decoction, with a little honey added thereto, is good to gargle a sore throat. The juice held a while in the mouth, eases pains in the teeth. The distilled water of the herb drank with some sugar, works the same effects, and cleanses the skin from spots, freckles, purples, wheals, sun-burn, morphew [blemishes], etc. The juice, or the distilled water, assuages hot and swelling imposthumes [abscesses], burnings and scaldings by fire or water; as also all other hot tumours and inflammations, or breakings-out, of heat, being bathed often with wet cloths dipped therein: The said juice made into a liniment with ceruss, and oil of roses, and anointed therewith, cleanses foul rotten ulcers, and stays spreading or creeping ulcers, and running scabs or sores in children’s heads; and helps to stay the hair from falling off the head. The said ointment, or the herb opens the piles, and eases their pains; and being mixed with goats’ tallow, helps the gout. The juice is very effectual to cleanse fistulas, and to heal them up safely; or the herb itself bruised and applied with a little salt. It is likewise also effectual to heal any green wound; if it be bruised and bound thereto for three days, you shall need no other medicine to heal it further. A poultice made hereof with Mallows, and boiled in wine and wheat bran and bean flour, and some oil put thereto, and applied warm to any bruised sinews, tendon, or muscle, doth in a very short time restore them to their strength, taking away the pains of the bruises, and dissolves the congealed blood coming of blows, or falls from high places.

The juice of Pellitory of the Wall clarified and boiled in a syrup with honey, and a spoonful of it drank every morning by such as are subject to the dropsy; if continuing that course, though but once a week, they ever have the dropsy, let them but come to me, and I will cure them gratis.

MODERN USES: Traditionally used as a diuretic and for coughs and cold, though seldom used today. Most of the modern scientific literature on pellitory-of-the-wall relates to the treatment of allergies and hay fever induced by the plant. CAUTION: A major hay allergy pollen source.

 

PENNYROYAL

(MENTHA PULEGIUM)

Pennyroyal is so well known unto all, I mean the common kind, that it needs no description.

PLACE: Common in gardens, grows in many moist places [in Europe. Naturalized in South America; escaped from cultivation in some locations in North America.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: The herb is under Venus. Being boiled and drank, it and stays the disposition to vomit, being taken in water and vinegar mingled together. And being mingled with honey and salt, it voids phlegm out of the lungs, and purges melancholy by the stool. Drank with wine, it helps such as are bitten and stung with venomous beasts, and applied to the nostrils with vinegar, revives those that are fainting and swooning. Being dried and burnt, it strengthens the gums. It is helpful to those that are troubled with the gout, being applied of itself to the place until it was red; and applied in a plaster, it takes away spots or marks in the face; applied with salt, it profits those that are splenetic, or livergrown. The decoction doth help the itch, if washed therewith. The green herb bruised and put into vinegar, cleanses foul ulcers, and takes away the marks of bruises and blows about the eyes, and all discolourings of the face by fire, yea, and the leprosy, being drank and outwardly applied: Boiled in wine with honey and salt, it helps the tooth-ache. It helps the cold griefs by the joints, taking away the pains, and warms the cold part, being fast bound to the place, after a bathing or sweating in a hot house.

MODERN USES: Aside from topical use to deter insects, pennyroyal is little used today except as a light tea to treat dyspepsia. Traditionally a menstruation-regulating herb, in classical antiquity it was employed by women of all social classes as an anti-fertility agent. Science confirms anti-microbial, insecticidal, and antioxidant activity. CAUTION: Ingestion of pennyroyal essential oil as an abortifacient has resulted in fatalities. Avoid.

 

PEONY

(PAEONIA OFFICINALIS AND PAEONIA LACTIFLORA)

[In the West, the term peony almost always refers to one of the thousands of cultivated varieties of the Asia peony (Paeonia lactiflora) grown in China for at least three thousand years. These peonies have been grown in European horticulture since the 1550s, predating Culpeper’s English Physician by a century. As many as eleven Paeonia species occur in Europe and twenty in the Mediterranean region, including Paeonia officinalis, once called Paeonia femina (the female peony of Culpeper), and Paeonia mas (the male peony of Culpeper), both of which are selected from the same highly variable species.]

PLACE: They grow in gardens. [Native to the Swiss mountains, southern Europe, and western Asia; cultivated in England since the early 1500s.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: It is an herb of the Sun, and under the Lion. Physicians say, Male Peony roots are best; but Dr. Reason told me Male Peony was best for men, and Female Peony for women, and he desires to be judged by his brother Dr. Experience. The roots are held to be of more virtue than the seed; next the flowers; and, last of all, the leaves. The roots of the Male Peony, fresh gathered, having been found by experience to cure the falling sickness; but the surest way is, besides hanging it about the neck, by which children have been cured, to take the root of the Male Peony washed clean, and stamped somewhat small, and laid to infuse in sack for 24 hours at the least, afterwards strain it, and take it first and last, morning and evening, a good draught for sundry days together, before and after a full moon: and this will also cure old persons, if the disease be not grown too old, and past cure, especially if there be a due and orderly preparation of the body with posset-drink made of Betony, &c. The root is also effectual for women that are not sufficiently cleansed after child-birth, and such as are troubled with the mother; for which likewise the black seed beaten to powder, and given in wine, is also available. The black seed also taken before bed-time, and in the morning, is very effectual for such as in their sleep are troubled with the disease called Ephialtes, or Incubus, but we do commonly call it the Night-mare: a disease which melancholy persons are subject unto: It is also good against melancholy dreams. The distilled water or syrup made of the flowers, works the same effects that the root and seed do, although more weakly. The Female’s is often used for the purpose aforesaid, by reason the Male is so scarce a plant, that it is possessed by few, and those great lovers of rarities in this kind.

MODERN USES: The root of Chinese peony and European peony are traditionally used similarly. Chinese peony is used in prescriptions for hypertensive headache, blood deficiencies, abdominal pains due to diarrhea or dysentery, appendicitis pain, abnormal or painful menstruation, fevers, and night sweats, among other uses. It is an official drug in pharmacies in the modern Chinese pharmacopeia. Experimentally, it lowers blood pressure and is anticonvulsive, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, an emmenagogue, and an expectorant. Usually a practitioner-prescribed herbal drug.

 

PEPPERWORTS, DITTANDER, AND GARDEN CRESS

(LEPIDIUM LATIFOLIA AND LEPIDIUM SATIVUM)

DESCRIPTION: Our common Pepperwort sends forth somewhat long and broad leaves, standing upon round hard stalks, three or four feet high, having many small white flowers at the tops of them. [Pepperwort grows in fields and wastelands; found throughout Europe and central Asia; naturalized elsewhere. Lepidium sativum, also known as garden cress, has a broader range, extending through most of Europe, northern Asia, India, and North Africa.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Here is another martial herb for you, make much of it. Pliny and Paulus Ægineta say, that Pepperwort is very successful for the sciatica, or any other gout or pain in the joints, or any other inveterate grief. The leaves hereof to be bruised, and mixed with old hog’s grease, and applied to the place, and to continue thereon four hours in men, and two hours in women, the place being afterwards bathed with wine and oil mixed together, and then wrapped up with wool or skins, after they have sweat a little. It also amends the deformities or discolourings of the skin, and helps to take away marks, scars, and scabs, or the foul marks of burning with fire or iron. The juice hereof is by some used to be given in ale to drink, to women with child, to procure them a speedy delivery in travail.

MODERN USES: As mustard family members, pepperwort, dittander, and garden cress have peppery leaves and roots like those of many other Lepidium species. The leaves and seedpods are used in small amounts as a wild food flavoring. Garden cress seeds have been used as a folk medicine to mend broken bones and relieve joint pains. It is the most widely used Lepidium species worldwide, particularly in India, where it is used as a diuretic and appetite stimulant. Antidiabetic, antioxidant, antiasthmatic, antispasmodic, liver-protective, and anti-inflammatory activity are associated with garden cress and pepperwort.

 

PERIWINKLE

(VINCA MAJOR, VINCA MINOR)

DESCRIPTION: The common sort hereof hath many branches trailing or running upon the ground. At the joints of these branches stand two small, dark-green, shining [evergreen] leaves with [blue-violet flowers].

PLACE: [Both greater periwinkle (Vinca major) and lesser periwinkle (Vina minor) were introduced into England in ancient times. They occur throughout Europe and are naturalized and weedy in North America and elsewhere.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Venus owns this herb, and saith, that the leaves eaten by man and wife together, cause love between them. The Periwinkle is a great binder, stays bleeding both at mouth and nose, if some of the leaves be chewed. The French used it to stay women’s courses. Dioscorides, Galen, and Ægineta, commend it against the lasks and fluxes of the belly to be drank in wine.

MODERN USES: Seldom used, the leaves of greater and lesser periwinkle are astringent and were used to stop bleeding. Not to be confused with the tropical plant Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus; syn. Vinca rosea), source of the toxic alkaloids vincristine and vinblastine and their analogs, which are widely used in chemotherapy, particularly for the treatment of childhood leukemias and Hodgkin’s disease.

 

PLANTAIN

(PLANTAGO LANCEOLATA AND PLANTAGO MAJOR)

This grows usually in meadows and fields, and by path sides, and is so well known, that it needs no description.

PLACE: [Both English or lanceleaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata) and common or broad-leaved plantain (Plantago major) are ubiquitous weeds found in lawns, roadsides, fields, sidewalk cracks, and wastelands wherever Europeans have settled. In many places, both are considered noxious weeds.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: It is true, Misaldus and others, yea, almost all astrology-physicians, hold this to be an herb of Mars, because it cures the diseases of the head and private parts, which are under the houses of Mars, Aries, and Scorpio: The truth is, it is under the command of Venus, and cures the head by antipathy to Mars, and the privities by sympathy to Venus; neither is there hardly a martial disease, but it cures.

The juice of Plantain clarified and drank for diverse days together, either of itself, or in other drink, prevails wonderfully against all torments or excoriations in the intestines or bowels, helps the distillations of rheum [watery discharge] from the head, and stays all manner of fluxes, even women’s courses, when they flow too abundantly. It is good to stay spitting of blood and other bleedings at the mouth, or the making of foul and bloody water, by reason of any ulcer in the kidneys or bladder, and also stays the too free bleeding of wounds. It is held an especial remedy for those that are troubled with the phthisic [tuberculosis], or consumption of the lungs, or ulcers of the lungs, or coughs that come of heat. The herb (but especially the seed) is held to be profitable against the dropsy, the falling-sickness, the yellow jaundice, and stoppings of the liver and kidneys. The roots of Plantain, and Pellitory of Spain, beaten into powder, and put into the hollow teeth, takes away the pains of them. The clarified juice, or distilled water, dropped into the eyes, cools the inflammations in them, and takes away the pin and web; and dropped into the ears, eases the pains in them, and heals and removes the heat. The same also with the juice of Houseleek is profitable against all inflammations and breakings out of the skin, and against burnings and scaldings by fire and water. The juice or decoction made either of itself, or other things of the like nature, is of much use and good effect for old and hollow ulcers that are hard to be cured, and for cankers and sores in the mouth or private parts of man or woman; and helps also the pains of the piles. The juice mixed with oil of roses, and the temples and forehead anointed therewith, eases the pains of the head proceeding from heat, and helps lunatic and frantic persons very much; as also the biting of serpents, or a mad dog. The same also is profitably applied to all hot gouts in the feet or hands, especially in the beginning. It is also good to be applied where any bone is out of joint, to hinder inflammations, swellings, and pains that presently rise thereupon. The powder of the dried leaves taken in drink, kills worms of the belly. One part of Plantain water, and two parts of the brine of powdered beef, boiled together and clarified, is a most sure remedy to heal all spreading scabs or itch in the head and body, all manner of tetters, ringworms, the shingles, and all other running and fretting sores. Briefly, the Plantains are singularly good wound herbs, to heal fresh or old wounds or sores, either inward or outward.

MODERN USES: Broad-leaved common plantain (Plantago major) and English or lanceleaf plantain (Plantago lanceolata) are among the most widely used herbs in folk medicine worldwide. Numerous studies have shown wound-healing, mild anti-biotic, and anti-inflammatory activity. Preparations are used for astringent and soothing action for inflamed mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract. The fresh or dried leaves are used externally for wounds, insect bites, and stings. The seed and seed husks of various Plantago species are the source of the psyllium seed, used as a fiber laxative.

 

PLUMS

(PRUNUS DOMESTICA)

Are so well known that they need no description.

PLACE: [Originated in southwest Asia and the Caucasus; domesticated centuries ago. Naturalized in hedgerows, open woods, and wastelands throughout England and much of Europe, central Asia, and eastern and western North America.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: All Plums are under Venus, and are like women, some better, and some worse. As there is great diversity of kinds, so there is in the operation of Plums, for some that are sweet moisten the stomach, and make the belly soluble; those that are sour quench thirst more, and bind the belly; the moist and waterish do sooner corrupt in the stomach, but the firm do nourish more, and offend less. The dried fruit sold by the grocers under the names of Damask Prunes, do somewhat loosen the belly, and being stewed, are often used, both in health and sickness, to relish the mouth and stomach, to procure appetite, and a little to open the body, allay choler [bile], and cool the stomach. Plum-tree leaves boiled in wine, are good to wash and gargle the mouth and throat, to dry the flux of rheum [watery discharge] coming to the palate [or] gums. The gum of the tree is good to break the stone. The gum or leaves boiled in vinegar, and applied, kills tetters and ringworms.

MODERN USES: Dried plums (prunes) and prune juice are well known as laxatives. Though not scientifically proven, such effects are easily observed by anyone who drinks a quantity of prune juice. Prune juice, rich in dietary fiber, is used to help restore normal bowel function in cases of constipation.

 

POLYPODY OF THE OAK

(POLYPODIUM VULGARE)

DESCRIPTION: [A small evergreen fern that often grows on the horizontal branches of oak trees.] The root is smaller than one’s little finger, brownish on the outside and greenish within, of a sweetish harshness in taste, having also much mossiness or yellow hairiness upon it.

PLACE: It grows [also] on old rotten stumps, or trunks of trees, as oak, beech, hazel, willow, or others. [Found in northern Europe and Asia.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Polypodium of the Oak, that which grows upon the earth is best; it is an herb of Saturn, to purge melancholy; if the humour be otherwise, choose your Polypodium accordingly. Meuse (who is called the Physician’s Evangelist for the certainty of his medicines, and the truth of his opinion) saith, that it dries up thin humours, digests thick and tough, and purges burnt choler [bile], and especially tough and thick phlegm, and thin phlegm also, even from the joints, and therefore good for those that are troubled with melancholy, or quartan agues [intermittent fevers such as malaria], especially if it be taken in whey or honied water, or in barley-water, or the broth of a chicken with Dodder, or with Beets and Mallows. It is good for the hardness of the spleen, and for pricking or stitches in the sides, as also for the cholic: Some use to put to it some Fennel seeds, or Anise seeds, or Ginger, to correct that loathing it brings to the stomach, which is more than needs, it being a safe and gentle medicine, fit for all persons, which daily experience confirms; and an ounce of it may be given at a time in a decoction, if there be not Senna, or some other strong purge put with it. A dram or two of the powder of the dried roots, taken fasting in a cup of honied water, works gently, and for the purposes aforesaid. The distilled water both of roots and leaves, is much commended for the quartan ague, to be taken for many days together, as also against melancholy, or fearful and troublesome sleeps or dreams; and with some sugar-candy dissolved therein, is good against the cough, shortness of breath, and wheezing, and those distillations of thin rheum [watery discharge] upon the lungs, which cause phthisis, and oftentimes consumptions. The fresh roots beaten small, or the powder of the dried roots mixed with honey, and applied to the member that is out of joint, doth much help it; and applied also to the nose, cures the disease called Polypus, which is a piece of flesh growing therein, which in time stops the passage of breath through that nostril; and it helps those clefts or chops that come between the fingers or toes.

MODERN USES: Traditionally used for upper respiratory tract infections and for relieving cough. The root (rhizome) of polypody of the oak has a bittersweet flavor and is considered laxative. A compound called osladin, which is up to five hundred times sweeter than sugar, was identified in the root. The root also contains steroid-like compounds that probably protect it from insects. Seldom used and not found in commercial trade. CAUTION: Extracts of the plant are known to interact with prescription drugs (increasing their effective dose), leading to potentially toxic effects.

 

POPLAR TREE

(POPULUS SPP.)

Black Poplar, White Poplar

There are two sorts of Poplars, which are most familiar with us, viz. the Black [Populus nigra] and White [Populus alba], both which I shall here describe unto you.

DESCRIPTION: The White Poplar [is] reasonably high, covered with thick, smooth, white bark, especially the branches. The Black Poplar grows higher and straighter than the White, with a greyish bark, bearing broad green leaves, somewhat like ivy leaves, not cut in on the edges like the White, but whole and dented, ending in a point, and not white underneath, hanging by slender long foot stalks, which with the air are continually shaken, like as the Aspen leaves are. On both these trees [especially on leaf hairs, a deterrent to beetles] grows a sweet kind of musk, which in former times was used to put into sweet ointments.

PLACE: [White poplar was introduced into England in ancient times and occurs throughout most of Europe, East Asia, North Africa, eastern North America, and temperate South America. Black poplar has a similar range, though occurs less frequently.] They grow in moist woods, and by water-sides in sundry places of this land; yet the White is not so frequent as the other.

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: Saturn hath dominion over both. White Poplar, saith Galen, is of a cleansing property: the weight of an ounce in powder, of the bark thereof, being drank, saith Dioscorides, is a remedy for those that are troubled with the sciatica, or the strangury. The juice of the leaves dropped warm into the ears, eases the pains in them. The young clammy buds or eyes, before they break out into leaves, bruised, and a little honey put to them, is a good medicine for a dull sight. The Black Poplar is held to be more cooling than the White, and therefore the leaves bruised with vinegar and applied, help the gout. The seed drank in vinegar, is held good against the falling-sickness. The water that drops from the hollow places of this tree, takes away warts, pushes, wheals, and other the like breakings-out of the body. The young Black Poplar buds, saith Matthiolus, are much used by women to beautify their hair, bruising them with fresh butter, straining them after they have been kept for some time in the sun. The ointment called Populneon, which is made of this Poplar, is singularly good for all heat and inflammations in any part of the body, and tempers the heat of wounds. It is much used to dry up the milk of women’s breasts when they have weaned their children.

MODERN USES: The unopened leaf buds of various poplars (especially Black Poplar) are sticky with resin, and the barks and buds contain components such as populin and salicin (the precursor to aspirin). They are used as an expectorant, antiseptic, and anti-inflammatory for acute or chronic upper respiratory tract infections, as well as a gargle to treat laryngitis. Used topically (especially in ointments) for treating skin ailments such as cuts and superficial wounds, hemorrhoids, frostbite, and sunburn. Studies have shown moderate antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and liver-protective effects.

 

POPPIES

(PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM, PAPAVER HYBRIDUM, AND PAPAVER RHOEAS)

Of this I shall describe three kinds, viz. the White and Black of the Garden, and the erratic Wild Poppy.

DESCRIPTION: The White Poppy [opium poppy (Papaver somniferum)], hath at first four or five whitish green leaves lying upon the ground, which rise with the stalk. The flowers [have] four very large, white, [pink, red, or purple] round [petals], with many whitish round threads in the middle, set about a round, green head, having a crown, or star-like cover, which growing ripe, contains a great number of small round seeds. The whole plant, leaves, stalks, and heads, while they are fresh, young, and green, yield a milk when they are broken, of an unpleasant bitter taste, of a strong heady smell, which being condensed, is called Opium.

The Black Poppy [Papaver hybridum] little differs from the former, until it bears its flower, which is somewhat less, and of a black purplish colour, but without any purple spots in the bottom of the leaf. The head of the seed is much less than the former.

The wild Poppy, or Corn Rose [Papaver rhoeas], hath long and narrow leaves, very much cut in on the edges into many divisions, of a light green colour, sometimes hairy. The stalk is blackish and hairy also, but not so tall as the garden kind. The flower is of a fair yellowish red or crimson colour. A small green head, which when it is ripe, is not bigger than one’s little finger’s end, wherein is contained much black seeds smaller than that of the garden.

PLACE: The garden kinds do not naturally grow wild in any place, but all are sown in gardens where they grow.

The Wild Poppy or Corn Rose, is plentifully enough, and many times too much so in the corn fields [considered weedy in much of Europe].

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: The herb is Lunar, and of the juice of it is made opium; only for lucre of money they cheat you, and tell you it is a kind of tear, or some such like thing, that drops from Poppies when they weep, and that is somewhere beyond the seas, I know not where beyond the Moon. The garden Poppy heads with seeds made into a syrup, is frequently, and to good effect used to procure rest, and sleep, in the sick and weak, and to stay catarrhs and defluxions [watery discharge] of thin rheums from the head into the stomach and lungs, causing a continual cough, the fore-runner of a consumption; it helps also hoarseness of the throat, and when one have lost their voice, which the oil of the seed doth likewise. The black seed boiled in wine, and drank, is said also to dry the flux of the belly, and women’s courses. The empty shells, or poppy heads, are usually boiled in water, and given to procure rest and sleep. So doth the leaves in the same manner; as also if the head and temples be bathed with the decoction warm, or with the oil of Poppies, the green leaves or the heads bruised and applied with a little vinegar, or made into a poultice with barley-meal or hog’s grease, cools and tempers all inflammations, as also the disease called St. Anthony’s fire. It is generally used in treacle and mithridate, and in all other medicines that are made to procure rest and sleep, and to ease pains in the head as well as in other parts. It is also used to cool inflammations, agues, or frenzies, or to stay defluxions which cause a cough, or consumptions, and also other fluxes of the belly or women’s courses; it is also put into hollow teeth, to ease the pain, and hath been found by experience to ease the pains of the gout.

The Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose (as Matthiolus saith) is good to prevent the falling-sickness. The syrup made with the flower, is with good effect given to those that have the pleurisy; and the dried flowers also, either boiled in water, or made into powder and drank, either in the distilled water of them, or some other drink, works the like effect. The distilled water of the flowers is held to be of much good use against surfeits, being drank evening and morning; It is also more cooling than any of the other Poppies, and therefore cannot but be as effectual in hot agues, frenzies, and other inflammations either inward or outward. Galen saith, the seed is dangerous to be used inwardly.

MODERN USES: Used since ancient times as a famous pain-killer and sedative, the white latex in poppy capsules contains more than two dozen alkaloids, including morphine and codeine, associated with pain relief. Today, semisynthetic and synthetic forms have largely replaced morphine and codeine extracted from the plant, and are used in virtually every hospital. Heroin is a purified form of the alkaloid morphine and is widely abused. CAUTION: Crude opium, morphine, and heroin are among the dangerous addictive drugs from opium poppies and are responsible for destroying countless lives. They are controlled narcotics worldwide.

 

PRIVET

(LIGUSTRUM VULGARE)

DESCRIPTION: Our common Privet is carried up with many slender branches to cover arbors, bowers and banqueting houses, and brought, wrought, and cut into so many forms, of men, horses, birds, etc. which though at first supported, grows afterwards strong of itself. It bears long and narrow green leaves by the couples, and sweet-smelling white flowers in tufts at the end of the branches, which turn into small black berries.

PLACE: [It grows throughout Europe; naturalized in North America.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: The Moon is lady of this. It is little used in physic with us in these times, more than in lotions, to wash sores and sore mouths, and to cool inflammations, and dry up fluxes. Yet Matthiolus saith, it serves all the uses for which Cypress, or the East Privet, is appointed by Dioscorides and Galen. He further saith, that the oil that is made of the flowers of Privet infused therein, and set in the Sun, is singularly good for the inflammations of wounds, and for the headache, coming of a hot cause. There is a sweet water also distilled from the flowers, that is good for all those diseases that need cooling and drying, and therefore helps all fluxes of the belly or stomach, bloody-fluxes [dysentery], and women’s courses, being either drank or applied; as all those that void blood at the mouth, or any other place, and for distillations of rheum [watery discharge] in the eyes, especially if it be used with them.

MODERN USES: The bitter, astringent leaves, as well as the flowers of privet, have been used in tea to treat sore throat and canker sores. The bitter black berries are purgative and turn the urine brown. Various species of Ligustrum have been used to prevent hypertension, inflammation, and diabetes, and are considered antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and antidiabetic. Related species are used in traditional Chinese medicine. CAUTION: The flowers are responsible for allergies and the fruits are considered potentially toxic.

 

PURSLANE

(PORTULACA OLERACEA)

Purslain

Garden Purslane (being used as a salad herb) is so well known that it needs no description; I shall therefore only speak of its virtues as follows.

PLACE: [Purslane is thought to originate in the Mediterranean region and is now considered weedy worldwide; recorded as a weed in in China by the tenth century and known in North and South America in Culpeper’s lifetime.]

GOVERNMENT AND VIRTUES: ’Tis an herb of the Moon. It is good to cool any heat in the liver, blood, kidneys, and stomach, and in hot agues nothing better. It stays hot and choleric fluxes of the belly, women’s courses, the whites, and gonorrhea, or running of the kidneys, the distillation from the head, and pains therein proceeding from heat, want of sleep, or the frenzy. The seed is more effectual than the herb, and is of singular good use to cool the heat and sharpness of urine, venereous dreams, and the like; insomuch that the over frequent use hereof extinguishes the heat and virtue of natural procreation. The seed bruised and boiled in wine, and given to children, expels the worms. The juice of the herb is held as effectual to all the purposes aforesaid; as also to stay vomiting, and taken with some sugar or honey, helps an old and dry cough, shortness of breath, and the phthisic, and stays immoderate thirst. The distilled water of the herb is used by many (as the more pleasing) with a little sugar to work the same effects. The juice also is singularly good in the inflammations and ulcers in the secret parts of man or woman, as also the bowels and hemorrhoids, when they are ulcerous. The herb bruised and applied to the forehead and temples, allays excessive heat therein, that hinders rest and sleep; and applied to the eyes, takes away the redness and inflammation in them, and those other parts where pushes, wheals, pimples, St. Anthony’s fire and the like, break forth; if a little vinegar be put to it, and laid to the neck, with as much of galls and linseed together, it takes away the pains therein, and the crick in the neck. The juice is used with oil of roses for the same causes, or for blasting by lightning, and burnings by gunpowder, or for women’s sore breasts, and to allay the heat in all other sores or hurts. Applied also to the navels of children that stick forth, it helps them; it is also good for sore mouths and gums that are swollen, and to fasten loose teeth. Camerarius saith, the distilled water used by some, took away the pain of their teeth, when all other remedies failed, and the thickened juice made into pills with the powder of gum Tragacanth and Arabic, being taken, prevails much to help those that make bloody water. Applied to the gout it eases pains thereof, and helps the hardness of the sinews, if it come not of the cramp, or a cold cause.

MODERN USES: The edible fresh succulent leaves of purslane are considered a cooling astringent, mostly applied externally to reduce inflammation. Used internally as a diuretic for painful urination. The seed oil contains omega-3 fatty acids and the neurohormone norepinephrine, which may reduce bleeding. First recorded in China in the year 934, the dried herb is used in traditional Chinese medicine (as ma-chi-xian) to stop bleeding and reduce heat for dysentery with bloody stools, hemorrhoids, and excessive uterine bleeding; externally the fresh herb is poulticed for boils, bug bites, and stings. The World Health Organization lists it among the most used medicinal plants in the world.