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CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

 

WILD PARSNEP (PARSNIP)

Description. The wild parsnep differs little from the garden, but grows not so fair and large, nor hath so many leaves, and the root is shorter, more woody, and not so fit to be eaten, and therefore more medicinal.

Place. It grows wild in divers places, as in the marshes in Rochester, and elsewhere.

Time. It flowers in July; the seed being ripe about the beginning of August, the second year after its sowing; for if they do flower the first year, the country people call them madneps.

Government and virtues. It is under Venus. The wild parsnep has a cutting, attenuating, cleansing, and opening quality therein. It resists and helps the bitings of serpents, eases the pains and stitches in the sides, and dissolves wind both in the stomach and bowels, which is the cholic, and provokes urine. The root is often used, but the seed much more. The wild being better than the tame, shews Dame Nature to be the best physician. The roots, when cultivated are sweeter than those of carrots, and are higly nutritious. In the nort of Ireland they are brewed with hops, in the same manner that we brew malt, and the liquor thus obtained, after undergoing a fermentation with yeast, proves very agreeable.


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