CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

WELTED MAY THISTLE

Description. The root is long, thick, and furnished with many fibres. The stalk is three feet high, edged at the several sides with sharp prickly membranes from the bases of the leaves, and of a dusky green. The leaves are oblong, considerably broad, dentated and sinuated at the edges, and very prickly. The flowers grow in small heads at the tops of the stalks and among the upper leaves, and they are of a pale red.

Place. It is usually found on ditch-banks in loamy soils.

Time. It flowers in August.

Government and virtues. The thistles in general are under Jupiter, though the virtues of some particular ones seem to declare them to be under Mars: however, they in general possess but small medicinal properties. The young shoots are esculent, and in most kinds very well tasted. They are celebrated by the German physicians as stomachic and sudorific, but they are not much regarded in the modern practice as those ecomiums bestowed on them by these authors seem to demand.