Smallage

This is also very well known, and therefore I shall not trouble the reader with any description thereof.

Place : It grows naturally in dry and marshy ground; but if it be sown in gardens, it there prospers very well.

Time : It abides green all the Winter, and seeds in August.

Government and virtues : It is an herb of Mercury. Smallage is hotter, drier, and much more medicinal than parsley, for it much more opens obstructions of the liver and spleen, rarefies thick phlegm, and cleanses it and the blood withal. It provokes urine and women's courses, and is singularly good against the yellow jaundice, tertian and quartan agues, if the juice thereof be taken, but especially made up into a syrup. The juice also put to honey of roses, and barley-water, is very good to gargle the mouth and throat of those that have sores and ulcers in them, and will quickly heal them. The same lotion also cleanses and heals all other foul ulcers and cankers elsewhere, if they be washed therewith. The seed is especially used to break and expel wind, to kill worms, and to help a stinking breath. The root is effectual to all the purposes aforesaid, and is held to be stronger in operation than the herb, but especially to open obstructions, and to rid away any ague, if the juice thereof be taken in wine, or the decoction thereof in wine used.