Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

270 FAMILY HERBAL.
the middle one, but all run length-ways, like that
from the base of the leaf toward the point. The
stalks grow a foot high, their lower half is naked,
and their upper part thick set, first with small
and inconsiderable flowers, of a greenish white
colour, and afterwards with seeds which are brown
and small.
This is one of those common plants, which have
so much virtue, that nature seems to have made
them common for universal benefit. The whole
plant is to he used, and it is best fresh. A decoction
of it in water is excellent against overflow-
ings of the menses, violent purgings with bloody
stools and vomiting of blood, the bleeding of the
piles, ar.d all other such disorders. The seeds
beaten to a powder, are good against the whites.
There is a broad leaved plantain with short flowery
spikes, and hairy leaves, this has full as much
virtue as the kind already described: the narrow
leaved plantain has less, but of the same kind.
Plowman's Spikenard. Baccharis monspeliensium,
A TALL robust wild plant with broad roug T
leaves, and numerous small yellowish flowc
frequent by road-sides, and in dry pastures. T
plant grows three feet high. The stalks arc rou
thick, upright, and a little hairy. The leaves
large, broad from the root, and narrower on
vtalk ; they are blunt at the points, and a little
dented at the edges. The flowers grow
on U.
tops of the branches, spreading out into a large
head from a single stem ; they are little and yellow :
} he seeds have down fixed to them. The root is
brown and woody ; the whole plant has a fragrant
and aromatic smell.
The leaves and tops given in decoction, are good