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Of Blacke Hellebore

The Description. 1 THis plant hath thicke and fat leaves of a deep green colour, the upper part whereof is somewhat bluntly nicked or toothed, having sundry divisions or cuts, in some leaves many, in others fewer. It beareth Rose-fashioned floures upon slender stems, growing immediatly out of the ground an handfull high, somtimes very white, and oftentimes mixed with a little shew of purple: which being vaded, there succeed small husks full of blacke seeds: the roots are many, with long blacke strings comming from one head. The Place.

These Hellebors grow upon rough and craggy mountains: we have them all in our London gardens.

The Time.

The first floureth about Christmasse, if the Winter be milde and warme. The Names.

It is agreed among the later writers, that these plants are Veratra nigra: in English, blacke Hellebores: of divers, Melampodium, because it was first found by Melampos, who was first thought to purge therewith Pratus his mad daughters, and to restore them to health. Dioscorides writeth, that this man was a shepheard: others, a Sooth-sayer. In high Dutch it is called Christs herbe, and that because it floureth about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The kind called of Fuchsius, Pseudohelleborus, is in English, false or bastard blacke Hellebor. Most name it Consiligo, because the husbandmen of our time doe herewith cure their cattell, no otherwise than the old Farriers or horse-leeches were wont to doe, that is, they cut a slit or hole in the dewlap, as they terme it (which is an emptie skinne under the throat of the beast) wherein they put a piece of the root of Setter-wort or Beare-foot, suffering it there to remaine for certaine daies together: which manner of curing they do call Settering of their cattell, and is a manner of rowelling, as the said Horse-leeches doe their horses with horse haire twisted, or such like, and as in Surgerie we doe use with silke, which in stead of the word Seton, a certaine Physitian called it by the name Rowell; a word very unproperly spoken of a learned man, because there would be some difference betweene men and beasts. This manner of Settering of cattell helpeth the disease of the lungs, the cough, and wheesing. And it is called in English, Beare-foot, Setterwort, and Setter-grasse.

The Vertues.

A purgation of Hellebor is good for mad and furious men, for melancholy, dull and heavie persons, and briefly for all those that are troubled with blacke choler, and molested with melancholy.