The Description.

            1. The common Fleur-de-lys hath long and large flaggy leaves like the blade of a sword, with two edges, amongst which spring up smooth and plain stalks two foot long, bearing flowers toward the top, compact of six leaves joined together, whereof three that stand upright are bent inward one toward another; and in those leaves that hang downward there are certain rough or hairy welts, growing or rising from the nether part of the leaf upward, almost of a yellow colour. The roots be thick, long, and knobby, with many hairy threads hanging thereat.

            2. The water Fleur-de-lys, or Water Flag, or Bastard Acorus, is like unto the garden Fleur-de-lys in roots, leaves, and stalks, but the leaves are much longer, sometimes of the height of four cubits, and altogether narrower. The flower is of a perfect yellow colour, and the root knobby like the other; but being cut, it seemeth to be of the colour of raw flesh.

The Place.

            The Water Fleur-de-lys or yellow flag prospereth well in moist meadows, and in the borders and brinks of rivers, ponds, and standing lakes. And although it be a water plant of nature, yet being planted in gardens it prospereth well.

The Names.

            Fleur-de-lys is called in Greek by Athenæus and Theophrastus Consecratrix; by which name it is also called of the Latins Radix Mario, or rather Radix Naronica, of the river Naron [Neretva], by which the best and greatest store do grow. Whereupon Nicander in his Treacles commendeth it thus:

Iridem quam aluit Drilon, & Naronis ripa.

            Which may thus be Englished:

Iris, which Drilon water feeds,
And Naron's banks with other weeds.

            The Italians, Giglio Azurro: in Spanish, Lilio Cardeno: in French, Flambe: The Germans, Gilgen, Schwertel: in Dutch, Lisch.

            The second is called in Latin, Iris Palustris lutea, Pseudoacorus, and Acornus palustris: in English, Water-flags, Bastard Fleur-de-lys, or Water Fleur-de-lys: and in the North they call them Seggs.

The Nature.

            1. The roots of the Fleur-de-lys being as yet fresh and green, and full of juice, are hot almost in the fourth degree. The dried roots are hot and dry in the third degree, burning the throat and mouth of such as taste them.

            2. The bastard Fleur-de-lys his root is cold and dry in the third degree, and of an astringent or binding faculty.

The Virtues.

            A. The root of the common Fleur-de-lys clean washed, and stamped with a few drops of rose-water, and laid plaster-wise upon the face of man or woman, doth in two days at the most take away the blackness or blueness of any stroke or bruise: so that if the skin of the same woman or any other person be very tender and delicate, it shall be needful that ye lay a piece of silk, sindall, or a piece of fine lawn between the plaster and the skin; for otherwise in such tender bodies it often causeth heat and inflammation.

            B. The juice of the same doth not only mightily and vehemently draw forth choler, but most especially watery humors, and is a special and singular purgation for them that have the dropsy, if it be drunk in whey or some other liquor that may somewhat temper and allay his heat.

            C. The dry roots attenuate or make thin thick and tough humours, which are hardly and with difficulty purged away.

            D. They are good in a lohoch or licking medicine for shortness of breath, an old cough, and all infirmities of the chest which rise hereupon.

            E. They remedy those that have evil spleens, and those that are troubled with convulsions or cramps, biting of serpents, and the running of the reins, being drunk with vinegar, as saith Dioscorides; and drunk with wine it bringeth down the monthly courses of women.

            F. The decoction is good in women's baths, for it mollifieth and openeth the matrix.

            G. Being boiled very soft, and laid to plaster-wise it mollifieth or softeneth the king's evil, and old hard swellings.

            H. The roots of our ordinary flags are not (as before is delivered) cold and dry in the third degree, nor yet in the second, as Dodonæus affirms; but hot and dry, and, that at the least in the second degree, as any that throughly tastes them will confess. Neither are the faculties and use (as some would persuade us) to be neglected; for as Pena and Lobel affirm, though it have no smell nor great heat, yet by reason of other faculties it is much to be preferred before the Galanga major, or foreign Acorus of shops, in many diseases; for it imparts more heat and strength to the stomach and neighbouring parts than the other, which rather preys upon and dissipates the innate heat and implanted strength of those parts. It binds, strengthens, and condenses: it is good in bloody fluxes, and stays the courses.