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Hog's Fennel
Names. Called also sow-fennel, hoar-strange, hoar-strong, sulphur-wort, and brimstone-wort.
Description. The common sow-fennel has divers branched stalks of thick and somewhat long leaves, three for the most part joined together at a place, among which arises a created straight stalk, less than fennel with some joints thereon, and leaves growing thereat, and towards the top some branches issuing from thence; likewise on the tops of the stalks and branches stand divers tufts of yellow flowers, whereafter grows some-what flat, thin, and yellowish seed, bigger than fennel-seed. The roots grow great and deep, with many other parts and fibres about them of a strong scent like hot brimstone, and yield forth a yellowish milk, or clammy juice, almost like a gum. Place. It grows plentifully in the salt low marshes near Faversham in Kent. Time. It flowers plentifully in July and August.
Government and virtues.. This is also an herb of Mercury. The juice of sew-fennel, says Dioscorides and Galen, used with vinegar and rose-water, or the juice with a little euphorbium put to the nose, helps those, that are troubled with the lethargy, phrenzy, giddiness of the head, the falling-sickness, long and inveterate head-ach, the palsy, sciatica, and the cramp, and generally all the diseases of the sinews, used with oil and vinegar. The juice dissolved in wine, or put into an egg, is good for a cough, or shortness of breath, and for those that are troubled with wind in the body. It purges the belly gently expels the hardness of the spleen, gives ease to women that have sore travail in child-birth, and cases the pains of the reins and bladder, and also the womb. A little of the juice dissolved in wine, and dropped into the ears, eases much of the pains in them, and put into a hollow tooth, eases the pains thereof. The root is less effectual to all the aforesaid disorders; yet the powder of the root cleanses foul ulcers, being put into them and takes out splinters of broken bones, or other things in the flesh, and heals them up perfectly; as also dries up old and inveterate running sores, and is of admirable virtue in all green wounds. FERN.
Description. Of this there are two kinds principally to be treated of, viz. the male and female: The female groweth higher than the male, but the leaves thereof are lesser and more divided and dented, and of as strong a smell as the male: the virtues of them are both alike, and therefore I shall not trouble you with any description or distinction of them. Place. They grow both on heaths, and in shady places, near the hedge-sides in all counties of this land.
Time. They flower and give their seed at midsummer.
The female fern is that plant which is in Sussex called brakes, the seed of which some authors hold to be so rare. Such a thing there is I know, and may be easily had upon midsummer eve, and for ought I know, two or three days after it, if not more.
Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Mercury, both male and female. The roots of both these sorts of fern being bruised and boiled in mead, or honeyed water, and drank, killeth both the broad and long worms in the body, and abateth both the swelling and hardness of the spleen. The green leaves eaten purge the belly and choleric and waterish humours that trouble the stomach. They are dangerous for women with child to meddle with by reason they cause abortions. The roots bruised and boiled in oil, or hog's grease, make a very profitable ointment to heal wounds or pricks gotten in the flesh. The powder of them used in foul ulcers, drieth up their malignant moisture, and causeth their speedier healing. Fern being burned, the smoke thereof driveth away serpents, gnats, and other noisome creatures, which in fenny countries do, in the night time, trouble and molest people lying in their beds with their faces uncovered; it causeth barrenness.