Osmond Royal, or Water Fern

Descript : This shoots forth in Spring time (for in the Winter the leaves perish) divers rough hard stalks, half round, and yellowish, or flat on the other side, two feet high, having divers branches of winged yellowish green leaves on all sides, set one against another, longer, narrower, and not nicked on the edges as the former. From the top of some of these stalks grow forth a long bush of small and more yellow, green, scaly aglets, set in the same manner on the stalks as the leaves are, which are accounted the flowers and seeds. The root is rough, thick and scabby: with a white pith in the middle, which is called the heart thereof.

Place : It grows on moors, bogs, and watery places, in many parts of this land.

Time : It is green all the summer, and the root only abides in winter.

Government and virtues : Saturn owns the plant. This has all the virtues mentioned in the former Ferns, and is much more effectual than they, both for inward and outward griefs, and is accounted singularly good in wounds, bruises, or the like. The decoction to be drank, or boiled into an ointment of oil, as a balsam or balm, and so it is singularly good against bruises, and bones broken, or out of joint, and gives much ease to the cholic and splenetic diseases: as also for ruptures or burstings. The decoction of the root in white wine, provokes urine exceedingly, and cleanses the bladder and passages of urine.