Important: Safety Warning
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.
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Sheep's Rampion
Description. The root, from a small head, shoots out many fibres. The stalk is pretty upright, of a pale green, round, very much branched, and grows to about three feet high. The leaves are of a faint green, and finely divided at the edges into small segments. The flowers grow in a large head like scabions, and are of a fine blue; but they are sometimes found of a reddish or white colour. Place, It is a biennial, common on high pastures.
Time. It flowers in August.
Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Mercury. It is bitter, of a slightly stringent saponaceous quality, and excellent against the disorders of the breast, such as coughs, asthmatic affections, difficulty of breathing, &c. for which purpose an infusion of the leaves is the best preparation. The flowers are said to be of a cordial sudorific nature, and good against feverish complaints; the juice, applied externally, is good against foulnesses and discolourings of the skin.