Part 20

Red and black Currans.

{52} For the Gout, or any Ach.

Spunck, an excrescence growing out of black Birch, the Indians use it for Touchwood; and therewith they help the Sciatica, or Gout of the Hip, or any great Ach, burning the Patient with it in two or three places upon the Thigh, and upon certain Veins.

2. Of such Plants as are proper to the Country.

To ripen any Impostume or Swelling. For sore Mouths. The New-Englands standing Dish.

Indian Wheat, of which there is three sorts, yellow, red, and blew; the blew is commonly Ripe before the other a Month: Five or Six Grains of Indian Wheat hath produced in one year 600. It is hotter than our Wheat and clammy; excellent in Cataplasms to ripen any Swelling or impostume. The decoction of the blew Corn, is good to wash sore Mouths with: It is light of digestion, and the English make a kind of Loblolly of it {53} to eat with Milk, which they call Sampe; they beat it in a Morter, and sift the flower out of it: the remainder they call Homminey, which they put into a Pot of two or three Gallons, with Water, and boyl it upon a gentle Fire till it be like a Hasty Pudden; they put of this into Milk, and so eat it. Their Bread also they make of the Homminey so boiled, and mix their Flower with it, cast it into a deep Bason in which they form the Loaf, and then turn it out upon the Peel, and presently put it into the Oven before it spreads abroad; the Flower makes excellent Puddens.

Bastard Calamus Aromaticus, agrees with the description, but is not barren; they flower in July, and grow in wet places, as about the brinks of Ponds.

To keep the Feet warm.

The English make use of the Leaves to keep their Feet warm. There is a little Beast called a Muskquash, that liveth in small Houses in the Ponds, like Mole Hills, that feed upon these Plants. Their Cods sent as sweet and as strong as Musk, and will last along time handsomly wrap’d up in Cotton wool; they are very good to lay amongst Cloaths. May is the best {54} time to kill them, for then their Cods sent strongest.

Wild-Leekes, which the Indians use much to eat with their fish.

A Plant like Knavers-Mustard, called New-England Mustard.

Mountain-Lillies, bearing many yellow Flowers, turning up their Leaves like the Martigon, or Turks Cap, spotted with small spots as deep as Safforn, they Flower in July.

One Berry, or Herb True Love. See the Figure.

Tobacco, there is not much of it Planted in New-England. The Indians make use of a small kind with short round leaves called Pooke.

For Burns and Scalds.

With a strong decoction of Tobacco they Cure Burns and Scalds, boiling it in Water from a Quart to a Pint, then wash the Sore therewith, and strew on the powder of dryed Tobacco.

Hollow Leaved Lavender, is a Plant that grows in salt Marshes overgrown with Moss, with one straight stalk about the bigness of an Oat straw, better than a Cubit high; upon the top standeth one {55} fantastical Flower, the Leaves grow close from the root, in shape like a Tankard, hollow, tough, and alwayes full of Water, the Root is made up of many small strings, growing only in the Moss, and not in the Earth, the whole Plant comes to its perfection in August, and then it has Leaves, Stalks, and Flowers as red as blood, excepting the Flower which hath some yellow admixt. I wonder where the knowledge of this Plant hath slept all this while, i.e. above Forty Years.

For all manner of Fluxes.

It is excellent for all manner of Fluxes.

Live for ever, a kind of Cud-weed.

Tree Primerose, taken by the Ignorant for Scabious.

A Solar Plant, as some will have it.

Maiden Hair, or Cappellus veneris verus, which ordinarily is half a Yard in height. The Apothecaries for shame now will substitute Wall-Rue no more for Maiden Hair, since it grows in abundance in New-England, from whence they may have good store.

Pirola, Two kinds. See the Figures, both of them excellent Wound Herbs.

Homer’s Molley.

{56} Lysimachus or Loose Strife, it grows in dry grounds in the open Sun four foot high, Flowers from the middle of the Plant to the top, the Flowers purple, standing upon a small sheath or cod, which when it is ripe breaks and puts forth a white silken doun, the stalk is red, and as big as ones Finger.

Marygold of Peru, of which there are two kinds, one bearing black seeds, the other black and white streak’d, this beareth the fairest flowers, commonly but one upon the very top of the stalk.

Treacle-Berries. See before Salomons Seal.