Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

FAMILY HERBAL. 4^
waiters, with a thick stalk, roundish leaves, and
spikes of little bright blue flowers. Brooklime
grows to a foot high. The stalk is round, fleshy
and large, yet it does not grow very upright :
it
strikes root at the lower joints. The leaves are
broad, oblong, blunt at the end, and a little
indented on the
edges. The flowers stand singly
on short foot~stalk3 one over another, so that they
form a kind of loose spike ; the roots are fibrous.
Brooklime has great virtues, but must be used
The
fresh gathered, for they are all lost in drying.
juice in spring is very good against the scurvy;
but it must be taken for some time. It works
gently by urine, but its great virtue is in sweetening
the blood.
Broom. Cenista.
A COMMON naked-looking shrub that grows
on waste grounds, and bears yellow flowers in
May. It is two or three feet high. The stalks
are very tough, angular, and green. The leaves
are few, and they are also small ; thev grow three
together, and stand at distances on the long- and
slender stalks. The flowers are numerous, they
are shaped like a pea-blossom, and are of a beautiful
bright yellow.
The pods are flat and hairy.
The green
stalks of broom, infused in ale or
beer for the common drink, operate by urine, and
remove obstructions of the liver and other parts ;
they are famous in the dropsv and jaundice.
It is
a common practice to burn them to ashes and infuse
those ashes in white-wine ; thus the fixed salt is
extracted, and the wine becomes a kind of lee. This
also works by urine more powerfully than the other,
but the other is preferable for removing obstructions.