Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician

Agrimony to yarrow: Nicholas Culpeper's outlaw herbal gave every English family the apothecary's secrets — each plant with its government, its virtues, and the diseases it was trusted to cure.

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Frog Bit

Description. A little plant, with round leaves and small white flowers. It has been, by the common writers, called a kind of water-lily, because its leaves are round, and it floats upon the water; but is as distinct as any thing can be, when we regard the flower. Duckweed has round leaves, and floats upon the water, and it might be called water-lily for that reason, if that were sufficient. The leaves are of a roundish figure, and a dusky dark green colour; they are of the breadth of a crown piece, and they rise many together in tufts, from the same part of the stalk. This stalk runs along at a little distance under the surface of the water, and from it descends the roots, but they do not reach down into the mud, but play loose, like the fibres of duckweed, in the water. The flowers stand singly upon slender footstalks: they are white, and composed of three leaves a-piece, which give them a singular appearance.

Virtues. The fresh leaves are used in outward applications, and are very cooling.

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