The Description.

            1. The leaves or the blades of the Leek be long, somewhat broad, and very many, having a keel or crest in the backside, in smell and taste like to the Onion. The stalks, if the blades be not often cut, do in the second or third year grow up round, bringing forth on the top flowers made up in a round head or ball as doth the Onion. The seeds are like. The bulb or root is long and slender, especially of the unset Leek. That of the other Leek is thicker and greater.

            2. Most Writers distinguish the common Leek into Porrum capitatum & sectivum; and Lobel gives these two figures wherewith we here present you. Now both these grow of the same seed, and they differ only in culture; for that which is often cut for the use of the kitchen is called sectivum: the other, which is headed, is not cut, but spared, and removed in Autumn.

The Place.

            It requireth a mean earth, fat, well dunged and digged. It is very common everywhere in other countries, as well as in England.

The Time.

            It may be sown in March or April, and it to be removed in September or October.

The Names.

            The Latins call it Porrum. The Emperor Nero had great pleasure in this root, and therefore he was called in scorn, Porrophagus [Leek-eater]. But Palladius in the masculine gender called it Porrus: the Germans, Lauch: the Brabanters, Pozreue: the Spaniards, Puerro: the French, Porreau: the Englishmen, Leek, or Leeks.

The Temperature.

            The Leek is hot and dry, and doth attenuate or make thin as doth the Onion.

The Virtues.

            Being boiled it is less hurtful, by reason that it loseth a great part of his sharpness: and yet being so used it yieldeth no good juice. But being taken with cold herbs his too hot quality is tempered.

            A. Being boiled and eaten with ptisan or barley cream; it concocteth and bringeth up raw humours that lie in the chest. Some affirm it to be good in a lohoch or licking medicine, to cleanse the pipes of the lungs.

            B. The juice drunk with honey is profitable against the bitings of venomous beasts, and likewise the leaves, stamped and laid thereupon.

            C. The same juice, with vinegar, frankincense, and milk, or oil of roses, dropped into the ears, mitigateth their pain, and is good for the noise in them.

            D. Two drams of the seed, with the like weight of myrtle berries drunk, stop the spitting of blood which hath continued a long time. The same ingredients put into wine keep it from souring, and being already sour, amend the same, as divers write. It cutteth and attenuateth gross and tough humours.

            E. Lobel commends the following Loch as very effectual against phlegmatic quinsies, and other cold catarrhs which are like to cause suffocation. This is the description thereof; Take blanched almonds three ounces, four figs, soft Bdellium half an ounce, juice of Liquorice, two ounces, of sugar candy dissolved in a sufficient quantity of juice of Leeks, and boiled in Balneo to the height of a syrup, as much as shall be requisite to make the rest into the form of an eclegma.

The Hurts.

            It heateth the body, engendereth naughty blood, causeth troublesome and terrible dreams, offendeth the eyes, dulleth the sight, hurteth those that are by nature hot and choleric, and is noisome to the stomach, and breedeth windiness.