CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

CALVE'S SNOUT

Names. Called also snap-dragon, and toad-flax.

Description. It is perennial, and has a long, slender, creeping root, that runs a great way beneath the surface of the ground, of a hardish consistence, and white. The stem is firm, upright, and two or three feet high. It is sometimes quite simple, but more commonly divided into several branches. The leaves are very numerous, scattered, long, narrow, entire on the edges, without any leaf-stalks, of a pale-green colour: the flowers are large, numerous, and very beautiful; they terminate the stem and brances in very long spikes. Their colour is a fine pale yellow, with a shade of deep orange in some of the parts. The seeds are numerous, almost flat, and circular.

Place. It is very common in barren pastures, hedges, and cultivated places.

Time. It is in blossom from July to the latter end of September.

Government and virtues. It is a plant of Sol in Leo, warm and diuretic, useful against the stone, gravel, and disorders of the reins and bladder, and help the dropsy and jaundice. It increases milk in nurses, if eaten as peas; but they are more windy than those. A cataplasm made with the farina is good or the hardness of the parotid glands, and for inflammations of the kidneys. An infusion of the leaves is both diuretic and purgative; and an ointment prepared from them gives relief in the piles. A decoction ofthe whole plant in ale purges briskly, and likewise operates by urine; and is frequently found serviceable in the jaundice, and beginning of dropsies. The juice of the leaves is good for inflammations of the eyes, and cleanses old ulcerous sores.