Alexander
Names. Called also Alisanders, horse parsley wildparsley, and the black pot-herb. The seed has frequently been sold for Macedonian parsley seed. Description. It has a thick blackish root, white within, and smells sweet, but tastes somewhat acrid and bitter. The stalk is above a yard high, full, branchy, chanelled, and somewhat red. The leaves are of a yellowish green, larger than those of marsh-smallage, and the pieces rounder. On the top are pretty large umbels of small five-leaved white flowers, succeeded by large oblong-cornered black seed and chanelled.
Place. It grows wild upon the rocks by the sea-side, and was formerly cultivated in gardens:
Time. It flowers in June and July, and the seed is ripe soon afterwards. Government and virtues. This plant is under Jupiter, therefore friendly to nature. The whole plant has a strong warm taste, and was more used in the kitchen than in the medicinal way, having been either eaten raw, as a sallad among other herbs, or else boiled and eaten with salt meat, or in broths in the spring season. The root pickled was deemed a good sauce, but its use in the kitchen has been entirely superseded by the cultivation of celery. It is reckoned to be of the nature of parsley or smallage, but stronger, and therefore may be serviceable in opening obstructions of the liver and spleen, provoking wind and urine, and consequently good in the dropsy or stranguary. For this purpose, half a drachm of the seeds powdered, and taken in white wine, every morning, is seldom known to fail. It is likewise good for bringing on the courses, and expelling the after-birth, notwithstanding it is seldom used in medicine.
This herb has a mixed sort of smell between lovage and smallage; about December and January the shoots appear above ground, which taken before the leaves spread and grow green, and boiled in a pretty large quantity of water, and seasoned with butter, &c. are not only a very wholesome, but also a very pleasant tasted spring food. The flower buds, and the upper part of the stalk in the beginning of April, before the turfs spread, and the flowers open, are likewise very good, if managed the same way.
ALOES.
Names. Called also sea houseleek, and sea-ay-green.
Description. This plant has very long leaves, thick and set round about with short points or crests, standing wide one from another: the root is thick and long; all this herb is of a strong flavour and bitter taste, Out of the herb is drawn a juice which is dried and called Aloes, after the plant Aloe, in different parts of the world. There are three sorts of Aloes common in the shops, but that which is procured from this plant, and distinguished by the name of Succotrine Aloes, is by far the best for internal use. Place. It grows very plentifully in India, and the best juice is brought from thence: it also grows in many places of Asia and Arabia, near the sea side. Government and virtues. It is a martial plant, hot in the second degree, and dry in the third; of a very bitter taste; the juice being refined and clarified from its dress, is of a clear and blackish clean brown colour; it opens the belly, and purges cold, phlegmatic, and choleric humours which overburden and hurt the stomach: it is the basis in almost all pills and comforts, cleanses and dries up all superfluous humours. It may be taken with cinnamon, ginger, mace, garlingal, or anniseed, to assuage and drive away pains of the stomach, to warm it, and expel phlegm: the same is also good against the jaundice and spitting of blood. Aloes made into powder, and strewed upon new bloody wounds, stops the blood and heals them: it likewise closes up old ulcers, particularly those about the private parts and fundament: boiled with wine and honey, it heals rifts and out-growings of the fundament, and stops the flux of the haemorrhoids: applied with honey it takes away black spots that come by stripes or bruises, and is good against inflammations, hurts, and scabs of the eyes, and against running and dimness of the same. Mixed with oil of roses and vinegar, and applied to the forehead and temples, it helps the head-ach: the head being rubbed with Aloes mixed with wine, preserves the hair; applied with wine, it cures sore mouths, sore gums, sore throat, and kernels under the tongue, and outwardly applied, is a good consolidative medicine. It likewise powerfully resists putrefaction, removes obstructions of the viscera, kills worms in the stomach and intestines, is good for the ague and green sickness, and provokes the menses.