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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Long Rough-Headed Poppy

Description. The first leaves of this poppy grow in a cluster; they are of a pale green, and hairy, and have short foot-stalks: they are deeply divided on the pinnated manner, so that they seem composed of many pairs placed on a rib, with an odd one at the end; but they are in reality only so many segments. The stalks are numerous, round, firm, very much branched, and a foot high. The flowers stand at the tops of the branches, and are of a beautiful scarlet colour, with little black buttons. The heads are long, and covered with a kind of soft prickles.

Place. It is common in many parts of England in corn-fields, and on ditch-banks.

Time. It flowers in June: but they quickly fade and fall off in this and the next species.

Description. This has a long, slender, white root, with a few fibres. The first leaves are numerous and beautifully divided into segments; they have foot-stalks, and are of a pale green, and uncommonly hairy. They are doubly pinnated, as it were, each consisting of several pairs of them in a middle rib, and each so doubly jagged, that they appear pinnated again. The stalk is round, rough, hairy, upright, branched, and a foot and half high. The leaves are numerous, and stand irregularly: they are of the same form with the lower ones, but smaller. The flowers are small in comparison of the preceding kind, otherwise not little in proportion to the plant: they are of a bright red, and consist each of tour petals with numerous threads. The seed-vessel is roundish and very rough, being set all over with a kind of bristly hair: the seeds are numerous, small, roundish, and black.

Place. It is most common in corn-fields in many parts of England. Time. It flowers in July.

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