Loosestrife or Willow-Herb

Descript : Common yellow Loosestrife grows to be four or five feet high, or more, with great round stalks, a little crested, diversly branched from the middle of them to the tops into great and long branches, on all which, at the joints, there grow long and narrow leaves, but broader below, and usually two at a joint, yet sometimes three or four, somewhat like willow leaves, smooth on the edges, and of a fair green colour from the upper joints of the branches, and at the tops of them also stand many yellow flowers of five leaves a-piece, with divers yellow threads in the middle, which turn into small round heads, containing small cornered seeds: the root creeps under ground, almost like couchgrass, but greater, and shoots up every Spring brownish heads which afterwards grow up into stalks. It has no scent or taste, and is only astringent.

Place : It grows in many places of the land in moist meadows, and by water sides.

Time : It flowers from June to August.

Government and virtues : This herb is good for all manner of bleeding at the mouth, nose, or wounds, and all fluxes of the belly, and the bloody-flux, given either to drink or taken by clysters; it stays also the abundance of women's courses; it is a singular good wound-herb for green wounds, to stay the bleeding, and quickly close together the lips of the wound, if the herb be bruised, and the juice only applied. It is often used in gargles for sore mouths, as also for the secret parts. The smoak hereof being bruised, drives away flies and gnats, which in the night time molest people inhabiting near marshes, and in the fenny countries.