CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

GARDEN ROCKET

Description. The common garden rocket has a slender, white woody root, of a hot biting taste; the leaves do somewhat resemble mustard in shape, but are much smoother; the stalks grow to be two or three feet high, cloathed with lesser leaves, having on their tops many flowers of a whitish yellow colour, full of dark purple veins; the seed-vessels which succeed them, are long, slender, and smooth, parted in two by a thin membrane, and opening at the sides when the seed is ripe.

Place. It is sown in gardens.

Time. It flowers here in August.

Government and virtues. All this kind of rockets are martial plants. This species is celebrated against diseases of the lungs. The juice is excellent in asthmas, and a syrup made of it in all oppressions and stuffings up of the breast: as also against inveterate coughs. Some have ascribed it to a provocative quality to venery, but this seems upon too slight grounds. It partakes much of the nature of the hedge mustard.