CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

COMMON SAW WORT

Description. This grows with a white fibrous root. The first leaves are usually undivided, oblong, and broad, and of a beautiful green: sometimes they are deeply cut in a pinnated form: and they, in the same manner, vary upon the stalks, being in some plants undivided, and in others very deeply jagged, while the species is the same. In both forms they are very regularly and beautifully notched at the edges: whence the plant has its name. The stalk is round, upright, slender, and two feet or more in height. The flowers are collected in small heads, and are of a fine purple; but the poverty of some soils produce them quite white. The seeds are oblong and large.

Place. It is common about woods.

Time. It flowers in August.

Government and virtues. This plant is under the government of Saturn. It is accounted vulnerary and astringent, but is not so mcuh used as it ought to be. It has a styptic, and a little sourish taste. It is very drying and binding, being used for diarrhæa and dysentery the fluxus hepaticus, the excess of the catamenia and fluor albus; and likewise against vomiting and spitting of blood.