Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

134 FAMILY HERBAL.
riot much used, but I have known a jaundice cured
by it, taken in the beginning.
Feverfew. Matricaria.
A co31mos wild plant, with divided leaves,
and a multitude of small flowers like daisies ; it
grows about farmers' yards. The stalk is round,
hollow, upright, branched, and striated, and grows
two feet high. The leaves are large, div'ded into
many smail ones, and those roundish and indented ;
they are of a yellowish green colour, and particular
smell. The flowers stand about the tops of the
stalks ; they are small, white round the edges, and
yellowish in the middle. The root is white, little,
and inconsiderable.
The whole plant is to be used ; it is best fresh,
but it preserves some virtue dried ; it is to be given
in *ea, and it is excellent against hysteric disorders ;
it promotes the menses.
Fig-tree. Ficus.
A shrub sufficiently known in our gardens. The
trunk is thick, but irregular, and the branches, which
are very numerous, grow without any sort of order.
The leaves are very large, and of a deep blackish
green, broad, divided deeply at the edges, and full
of a milky juice. The flowers are contained within
the fruit. The fig-tree produces fruit twice in the
year ; the first set in spring, the second towards
September, but these last never ripen with us. The
dried figs of the grocers are the fruit of the same tree
in Spain and Portugal, but they grow larger there,
and ripen better.
Our own fige arc wholesome fruit, and they are