Of Cow Basill.

| | | |---|---| | 1 Vaccaria. | 2 Ephemerum Mathioli. | | Cow Basill. | Quicke fading flower. |

The description.

This kinde of wilde Woade hath fat long leaues like Valeriana rubra Dodonæi, or Behen album: the stalke is small and tender, hauing thereupon little purple flowers, consisting of fower leaues; which being past, there come square cornered huskes, full of round blacke seede like Colewoorts. The whole plant is couered ouer with a clamme substance like Birdlime, so that in hot weather the leaues thereof will take flies by the wings (as Muscipula doth) in such maner, that they cannot escape away. 2 Ephemerum Mathioli, hath long, fat, and large leaues like vnto Woade, but much lesser: among which riseth vp a rounde stalke a cubite high, diuiding it selfe into many braunches at the top. The which are set with many small white flowers, consisting of fiue leaues, which being past, there followe little rounde bullets, conteining the seede. The roote is small and full of fibres.

The place.

Cow Basill groweth in my garden: but Ephemerum is a stranger as yet in Englande.

The time.

They flower in Maie and Iune.

The vertues.

I finde not any thing extant concerning the nature and vertues of Vaccaria, called Cowe Basill. Ephemerum (as Dioscorides writeth) boiled in wine, and the mouth washed with the decoction thereof, taketh away the toothache.