The Description.

            1. The male Satyrion Royal hath large roots, knobbed, not bulbed as the others, but branched or cut into sundry sections like an hand, from the which come up thick and fat stalks set with large leaves like those of Lilies, but less; at the top whereof groweth a tuft of flowers, spotted with a deep purple colour.

            2. The Female Satyrion hath cloven or forked roots, with some fibres joined thereto. The leaves be like the former, but smaller and narrower, and confusedly dashed or spotted with black spots: from the which springeth up a tender stalk, at the top whereof doth grow a tuft of purple flowers, in fashion like unto a Friar's hood, changing or varying according to the soil and climate, sometimes red, sometimes white, and sometimes light carnation or flesh colour.

Fig. 377. Austrian Handed Satyrion (3)

            3. This in roots and leaves is like the former, but that the leaves want the black spots, the stalk is but low, and the top thereof hath flowers of a whitish colour, not spotted: they on the foreside resemble gaping hoods, with ears on each side, and a broad lip hanging down; the back part ends in a broad obtuse spur. These flowers smell like Elder blossoms.

The Place.

            The Royal Satyrions grow for the most part in moist and fenny grounds, meadows, and woods that are very moist and shadowy. I have found them in many places, especially in the midst of a wood in Kent called Swanscombe Wood near to Gravesend, by the village Swanscombe, and likewise in Hampstead wood four miles from London.

The Time.

            They flower in May and June, but seldom later.

The Names

            Royal Satyrion, or finger Orchis is called in Latin, Palma Christi; notwithstanding there is another herb or plant called by the same name, which otherwise is called Ricinus. This plant is called likewise of some, Satyrium Basilicum, or Satyrium regium. Some would have it to be Buzeiden, or Buzidan Arabum, but Avicenna saith Buzeiden is a woody Indian medicine: and Serapio saith, Buzeiden be hard white roots like those of Behen album, and that it is an Indian drug: but contrariwise the roots of Palma Christi are nothing less than woody, so that it cannot be the same. Matthiolus would have Satyrion Royal to be the Digita Citrini of Avicenna; finding fault with the monks which set forth commentaries upon Mesue's Compositions, for doubting and leaving it to the judgement of the discreet reader. Yet do we better allow of the monks doubt, than of Matthiolus his assertion. For Avicenna's words be these; What is Asabasafra, or Digiti Citrini? and answering the doubt himself, he saith, It is in figure or shape like the palm of a man's hand, of a mixed colour between yellow and white, and it is hard, in which there is a little sweetness, and there is a citrine sort dusty and without sweetness. Rhasis also in the last book of his Continent calls these, Digiti Crocei, or Saffron Fingers; and he saith it is a gum or vein for dyers. Now these roots are nothing less than of a saffron colour, and wholly unfit for dyeing. Wherefore without doubt these words of Avicenna and Rhasis, in the ears of men of judgment do confirme, That Satyrion Royal, or Palma Christi, are not those Digiti Citrini. The Germans call it Creutsblum; the low Dutch, Handekens cruyt; the French, Satyrion royal.

The Temperature and Virtues

            The roots of Satyrion Royal are like to Cynosorchis or Dog's Stones, both in savour and taste, and therefore are thought by some to be of like faculties. Yet Nicolaus Nicolus, in the chapter of the cure of a quartan ague, saith, That the roots of Palma Christi are of force to purge upward and downward; and that a piece of the root as long as one's thumb stamped and given with wine before the fit cometh, is a good remedy against old quartans after purgation: and reporteth, That one Baliolus, after he had endured 44 fits, was cured therewith.

            This faculty of purging and vomiting, which our author out of Dodonæus, and he out of Nicolus, give to the root of Palma Christi, I doubt it mistaken and put to the wrong place; for I judge it to belong to the Ricinus, which also is called Palma Christi; for that Nicolus saith, a piece of root must be taken as long as one's thumb; now the whole root of this plant is not so long. And besides, Ricinus is known to have a vomitory or purging faculty.