Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

226 FAMILY HERBAL.
and against heat of urine ;
The grain is eaten also as barley.
5 IilkworTj Polggala.
it is also a little astringent.
A common little plant upon our heaths, and
m dry pastures, with numerous leaves and blue or
white ilowers, (for this is a variety and caused by
accidents, ) disposed in loose spikes. The root is
long, and divided into several parts,
the stalks are
very numerous, and very much branched, they are
slender and weak, and they spread themselves upon
the ground, forming a little green tuft. There is
great variety in the appearance of the plant, beside
what has been already named in the colour of the
flower ; nor is that indeed the only variation there :
so that it has been divided into two or three kinds
by some writers, but as all these will rise from the
same seed, and only ate owing to the soil and
exposure, the plant
every appearance,
is without doubt the same in
and iis virtues are Hie same
in which ever state ;t is taken. When it grows
in barren places, the stalk* arc not more than three
or four inches in length, and the leaves are very
numerous, short, and of an ova! figure. The I lowers
are in this case small and blue, sometimes
whitish, striated with blue, and sometimes intirely
white. When the plant grows in some-
what more favourable soil, the leaves are oblong,
and narrow, pointed at the ends, and of a beautiful
green, the stalks are five or six indies long, and
the Hovel's in this case are comnwnh blue, and
this is tin- most ordinary -tate of the
plant. When
.' grou*i in very favourable plaees,
damp
as upon the
~.:'.!e of a hill, where there are springs, and
among ?i)i> tall grass, then its leaves are humor, its
'iilkfc )> ur robust and more anr'eht, and i.!s flowers