Important: Safety Warning
This page gives doses of a plant that is acutely poisonous. Foxglove, aconite, deadly nightshade, henbane, thorn-apple and meadow saffron have all killed at quantities close to those prescribed here, and for several of them the fatal dose is a fraction of a teaspoonful. There is no safe domestic preparation of these plants, no reliable way to judge the strength of one you have gathered, and no antidote you could apply at home. Do not gather, prepare, taste or swallow any part of the plant described on this page.
In addition, this page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Hen-Bane
Description. The common hen-bane hath very large, thick, soft, woolly, leaves, lying upon the ground, much cut or torn on the edges, of a dark, ill, greyish-green colour; from among these rise up several thick and short stalks, two or three feet high, spread into many smaller branches with less leaves thereon, bearing small yellow flowers, which scarcely appears above the husk; they are usually torn on the one side, ending in five round points growing one above another, of a dead yellowish colour, somewhat paler toward the edges, with many purplish veins, and of a dark yellowish purple colour at the bottom of the flower, with a small pointel of the same colour in the middle; each of them stands in a hard close husk, somewhat like those of asarabacca, and rather sharp at the top points, containing much small seed, very like poppy-seed, but of a dusky greyish colour. The root is large, white, and thick, and branching forth many ways under ground, not unlike a parsnip, except in colour, and is, together with the plant, of a very strong, disagreeable, and offensive smell.
Place. It generally groweth near path-ways, and the under sides of hedges and old walls.
Time. It blossoms in July, and springeth annually from its own sowing; though many believe it to flower much earlier.
Government and virtues. It is a Saturnine plant. The leaves are good for cooling hot inflammations in the eyes, or other parts of the body; and, being boiled in wine, and used as a foment, it will assuage all manner of swellings, either in the scrotum, women's breasts, and other parts of the body; also the gout, sciatica, and pains of the joints, if proceeding from a hot cause. Being applied with vinegar to the forehead and temples, it helpeth the head-ach, and causeth those to sleep who are prevented by hot violent fevers. The oil of the seed is good for deafness, and noise and worms in the ears. The juice of the herb or seed, or the oil drawn from the seed, will answer all the aforesaid purposes.