The Common Alder-Tree

Descript : This grows to a reasonable height, and spreads much if it like the place. It is so generally known to country people, that I conceive it needless to tell that which is no news.

Place and Time : It delights to grow in moist woods, and watery places; flowering in April or May, and yielding ripe seed in September.

Government and virtues : It is a tree under the dominion of Venus, and of some watery sign or others, I suppose Pisces; and therefore the decoction, or distilled water of the leaves, is excellent against burnings and inflammations, either with wounds or without, to bathe the place grieved with, and especially for that inflammation in the breast, which the vulgar call an ague.

If you cannot get the leaves (as in Winter it is impossible) make use of the bark in the same manner.

The leaves and bark of the Alder-tree are cooling, drying, and binding. The fresh leaves, laid upon swellings, dissolve them, and stay the inflammation. The leaves put under the bare feet galled with travelling, are a great refreshing to them. The said leaves, gathered while the morning dew is on them, and brought into a chamber troubled with fleas, will gather them thereunto, which being suddenly cast out, will rid the chamber of those troublesome bedfellows.