CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

SWEET FEVERFEW

Description. The leaves of these feverfews are stringy and very narrow, but the flower indicates the species. The stalks are stiff, round, or striated, two feet high or more, clothed with smaller leaves, and pretty much branched towards the top, on which grow large flat umbels of flowers, made of several white petals, broader and shorter than those of camomile, set about a yellow thrum. The root is thick at the head, having many fibres under it; the whole plant has a very strong and, to most, an unpleasant smell.

Place. They grow in hedges and lanes.

Time. The flowers are in June and July. The leaves and flowers are used.

Government and virtues. The virtues of feverfew are very great: it is an herb particularly appropriated to the female sex, being of great service in all cold flatulent disorders of the womb, and hysteric affections; procuring the catamenia, and expelling the birth and secundines. The juice to the quantity of two ounces, given an hour before the fit, is good for all kinds of agues. It likewise destroys worms, provokes urine, and is good for the dropsy and jaundice. Corn and sea feverfew are variations that soil and situation naturally produce. The latter is most frequent in the neighbourhood of Chichester.