Home › Contents › Of Medow-Grasse

Of Medow-Grasse

THere be sundry and infinite kindes of Grasses not mentioned by the Antients, either as unnecessarie to be set downe, or unknowne to them: only they make mention of some few, whose wants we meane to supply, in such as have come to our knowledge, referring the rest to the curious searcher of Simples. The Description. 1 COmmon Medow Grasse hath very small tufts or roots, with thicke hairy threds depending upon the highest turfe, matting and creeping on the ground with a most thicke and apparant shew of wheaten leaves, lifting up long thinne jointed and light stalks, a foot or a cubit high, growing small and sharpe at the top, with a loose ear hanging downward, like the tuft or top of the common Reed. 2 Small Medow Grasse differeth from the former in the varietie of the soile; for as the first kinde groweth in medowes, so doth this small Grasse clothe the hilly and more dry grounds untilled, and barren by nature; a Grasse more fit for sheepe than for greater cattell. And because the kindes of Grasse do differ apparantly in root, tuft, stalke, leafe, sheath, eare, or crest, we may assure our selves that they are endowed with severall Vertues, formed by the Creator for the use of man, although they have been by a common negligence hidden and unknowne. And therefore in this our Labor we have placed each of them in their severall bed, where the diligent searcher of Nature may, if so he please, place his learned observations.

The Place.

Common Medow-Grasse groweth of it selfe unset or unsowne, every where; but the small Medow-Grasse for the most part groweth upon dry and barren grounds, as partly we have touched in the Description.

The Time.

Concerning the time when Grasse springeth and seedeth, I suppose there is none so simple but knoweth it, and that it continueth all the whole yeare, seeding in June and July. Neither needeth it any propagation or replanting by seed or otherwise; no not so much as the watery Grasses, but that they recover themselves againe, although they have beene drowned in water all the Winter long, as may appeare in the wilde fennes in Lincolnshire, and such like places.

The Names.

Grasse is called in Latine, Gramen; as it is thought, a gradiendo, quod geniculatis internodiis serpat, crebroque novas spargat radices. For it groweth, goeth, or spreadeth it selfe unset or unsowne naturally over all fields or grounds, cloathing them with a faire and perfect green. It is yearely mowed, in some places twice, and in some rare places thrice. Then is it dried and withered by the heate of the Sun, with often turning it; and then is it called in English, Hay: in French, Le herbe du praiz. The Vertues.

The roots of Grasse, according to Galen, doe glew and consolidate together new and bleeding wounds.

Hay sodden in water till it be tender, and applied hot to the chaps of beasts that be chap-fallen through long standing in pound or stable without meat, is a present remedie.