CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

DWARF SPURGE

Description. This has a lesser root by much than the petty spurge, and sends forth many stalks not much branched, a foot or more high, set thick with long narrow leaves lik toad-flax, but rounder pointed: the tops of the stalks are divided into several partitions like umbels, having several hollow cup-like leaves pierced through by the footstalks of the flowers, which are small and yellow; the seed vessel is three-square, like the former.

Place. It grows in several places of Germany and France, but with us only in gardens.

Government and virtues. The virtues ascribed to this spurge are the same as the former, being, as that, a strong and violent cathartic and emetic; but the shops being furnished with safer and gentler medicines, both this and the former are grown pretty much out of esteem, and very rarely prescribed.