Cudweed, or Cottonweed

Besides Cudweed and Cottonweed, it is also Called Chaffweed, Dwarf Cotton, and Petty Cotton.

Descript : The common Cudweed rises up with one stalk sometimes, and sometimes with two or three, thick set on all sides with small, long and narrow whitish or woody leaves, from the middle of the stalk almost up to the top, with leaf stands small flowers of a dun or brownish yellow colour, or not so yellow as others; in which herbs, after the flowers are fallen, come small seed wrapped up, with the down therein, and is carried away with the wind; the root is small and thready.

There are other sorts hereof, which are somewhat less than the former, not much different, save only that the stalks and leaves are shorter, so that the flowers are paler and more open.

Place : They grow in dry, barren, sandy, and gravelly grounds, in most places of this land.

Time : They flower about July, some earlier, some later, and their seed is ripe in August.

Government and virtues : Venus is Lady of it. The plants are all astringent, binding, or drying, and therefore profitable for defluctions of rheum from the head, and to stays fluxes of blood wheresoever, the decoction being made into red wine and drank, or the powder taken therein. It also helps the bloody-flux, and eases the torments that come thereby, stays the immoderate courses of women, and is also good for inward or outward wounds, hurts, and bruises, and helps children both of bursting and the worms, and being either drank or injected, for the disease called Tenesmus, which is an often provocation to the stool without doing any think. The green leaves bruised, and laid to any green wound, stays the bleeding, and heals it up quickly. The juice of the herb taken in wine and milk, is, as Pliny saith, a sovereign remedy against the mumps and quinsey; and further saith, That whosoever shall so take it, shall never be troubled with that disease again.