CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

VETCH COMMON BLACK TARE, OR TARE

Description. The stalks of Tares are angular, weak, and leaning, beset alternately at the joints with long leaves, having a tendril at their end, made of ten or a dozen small roundish pinnæ, a little hollowed in, with a spinula at the end: they are sometimes a little hairy. The flowers grow usually two together, upright, and less than pea-blossoms, of a purplish colour; after which follow small flattish pods containing three or four small round black seeds less than pease.

Place. Tares are sown in the fields.

Time. It flowers in May, the seed being ripe in August and September.

Government and virtues. They are under the moon in an airy sign. Tares are rarely used in medicines, though the vulgar boil them in milk, and give the decoction to drive out the small-pox and measles.