CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

BRANK-URSINE

Names. Besides the common name brank-ursine, it is also called bear's breech, and acanthus; though I think our English names to be more proper; for the Greek word acanthus signifies any thistle whatever.

Description. This thistle shoots forth very many large, thick, sad green, smooth leaves upon the ground with a very thick and juicy middle rib; the leaves are parted with sundry deep gashes on the edge; the leaves remain a long time before any stalk appears, afterwards riseth up a reasonably big stalk three or four feet high, and finely decked with flowers from the middle of the stalk upwards, for on the lower part of the stalk, there is neither branch nor leaf: the flowers are hooded and gaping, being white in colour, and standing in brownish husks, with a long small, long, undivided leaf under each leaf; they seldom seed in our country, its roots are many, great, and thick, blackish without and whitish within, full of a clammy sap; if you set a piece of them in a garden, defending it from the first winter's cold, it will grow and flourish.

Place. They are only nursed up in gardens in England, where they will grow very well.

Time. It flowereth in June and July.

Government and virtues. It is an excellent plant under the dominion of the Moon; I could wish such as are studious would labour to keep it in their gardens. Its leaves being boiled, and used in clysters, is excellent good to mollify the belly, and make the passage slippery; the decoction, drunk, is excellent good for the bloody flux: the leaves being bruised, or rather boiled and applied like a poultice, are exceeding good to unite broken bones, and strengthen joints that have been put out; the decoction of either the leaves or roots being drunk, and the decocted leaves applied to the place, is excellent good for the king's evil that is broken and runneth, for by the influence of the Moon it reviveth the ends of the veins which are relaxed; there is scarcely a better remedy to be applied to such places as are burnt with fire than this is; for it fetcheth out the fire, and healeth it without a scar; it is also an excellent remedy for such as are bursten, being either taken inwardly, or applied to the place; in like manner used, it helps the cramp and the gout; it is excellent good in hectic fevers, and restores radical moisture to such as are in consumptions.