Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

224 FAMILY HERBAL.
1
a joint,, and long straggling
spikes of yellow flow-
ers. It is a foot and a half high, or more. The
stalk is weak, slender, green, and striated. The
(eaves are oblong, and blunt at the ends : they
are serrated round the edges, and of a bright green
colour. The flowers are small, and of the shape
of the flowers of tares, but little ; and there follows
each a roundish pod, rough and green. The whole
plant has a singular, but not disagreeable smell ;
and
the leaves are the food of so many insects, that they
are commonly gnawn to pieces.
The fresh plant is excellent to mix in pultices, to be
applied to swellings. It was once famous in a plaister,
used for dressing of blisters, but the apothecaries used
to play so many bad tricks, to imitate the green colour
it was expected to give, that the plaister is now made
without it.
Melon. Melo,
A training herb, with yellow flowers, and large
fruit ; weH known at our tables. The plant grows
to eight or tan feet long, but is not erect. The stalks
are angulated, thick, and of a pale green. The
leaves are large and broad, somewhat roundish, and
not deeply divdeu, as in most of the creeping plants
of this sort. There are tendrils on the stalk for its
laying hold of any thing. The flowers are very
large, and open a' the mouth. The fruit is oblong
and rough, more or less on the surface, containing
seeds, with ajuicy matter within.
The seeds are the part used : 1 1 up y arc cooling, and
vork by urine. They are be?i given in an emulsion,
heat up with bailey water : this is a good drink in
fivers ffiven warm.