The Description.

            1. This which I here give you in the first place, as also the other two, are of the kinds of Hawkweed, or Hieracium; wherefore I thought it most fit to treat of them in this place. This first hath a pretty large yet fibrous and stringy root; from the which arise many longish leaves, hairy, soft, and unequally divided, and commonly cut in the deepest nearest the stalk; they are of a dark green colour, and they are sometimes broader and shorter, and otherwhiles narrower and longer (whence Tabernamontanus makes three sorts of this, yet are they nothing but varieties of this same plant.) Amongst these leaves grow up one or two naked stalks, commonly having no more than one leaf apiece, and that about the middle of the stalk; these stalks are also hairy, and about a cubit high, divided at their tops into sundry branches, which bear double yellow flowers of an indifferent bigness, which fading and turning into down, are together with the seed carried away with the wind. This whole plant is milky like as the other Hawk-weeds.

            2. This plant (though confounded by some with the former) is much different from the last described; for the root is small and fibrous; the leaves also are small, of the bigness, and somewhat of the shape (though otherwise indented) of Daisy leaves, whitish and hoary; the stalk is not above an handful high, crested, hoary, and set with many longish narrow leaves; and at the top on short footstalks it bears four or five flowers of a bright yellow colour and pretty large, considering the smallness of the plant. The flowers, like as others of this kind, fly away in down, and carry the seeds with them.

Fig. 497. Golden Mouse-Ear, or Grim the Collier (3)

            3. This plant (which some also have confounded with the first described) hath a root at the top, of a reddish or brownish colour, but whitish within the earth, & on the lower side sending forth whitish fibres: it bringeth forth in good and fruitful grounds leaves about a foot long, and two or three inches broad, of a dark green colour, and hairy, little or nothing at all cut in about the edges; amongst these leaves riseth up a stalk some cubit high, round, hollow, and naked, but that it sometimes hath a leaf or two toward the bottom, and towards the top it puts forth a branch or two. The flowers grow at the top as it were in an umbel, and are of the bigness of the ordinary Mouse-Ear, and of an orange colour.The seeds are round, & blackish, and are carried away with the down by the wind. The stalks and cups of the flowers are all set thick with a blackish down or hairiness as it were the dust of coals; whence the women, who keep in it gardens for novelty sake, have named it Grim the Collier.

The Time.

            All these flower in June, July, and August, about the later part of which month they ripen their seed.

The Place.

            1. I received some plants of this from John Goodyer, who first found it May 27, 1631, in flower; and the 3^rd of the following May, not yet flowering, in a copse in Godalming in Surrey, adjoining to the orchard of the inn whose sign is the Antelope.

            2. This I had from my kind friend Mr. William Coote, who wrote to me, That he found them growing on a hill in the Lady Bridget Kingsmill's grounds, in an old Roman camp, close by the Decumane port, on the quarter that regards the west-south-west, upon the skirts of the hill.

            3. This is a stranger, and only to be found in some few gardens.

The Names.

            1. This was first set forth by Tragus, under the name of Auricula muris maior: and by Tabernamontanus (who gave three figures expressing the several varieties thereof) by the name of Pulmonaria galli, sive aurea: Dalechampius hath it under the name of Corchorus.

            2. This was by Lobel (who first set it forth) confounded with the former, as you may see by the title over the figure in his Observations, pag. 317, yet his figure doth much differ from that of Tragus, who neither in his figure nor description allows so much as one leaf upon the stalks; and Tabernamontanus allows but one, which it seldom wants. Now this by Lobel's figure hath many narrow leaves; and by the description, Advers. pag. 253, it is no more than an handful, or handful and half high: which very well agrees with the plant we here give you, and by no means with the former, whose naked stalks are at least a cubit high. So it is manifest that this plant I have described is different from the former, and is that which Pena and Lobel gave us under the title of Pulmonaria gallorum flore hieracii. Bauhin also confounds this with the former.

            3. Basil Besler in his Hortus Eystettensis hath well expressed this plant under the title of Hieracium latifolium peregrinum phlomoides: Bauhin calls it Hieracium hortense floribus atropurpurascentibus and saith that some call it Piliosella maior: and I judge it to be the Hieracium germanicum of Fabius Columna. This also seems rather to be the herb Costa of Camerarius, than the first described; and I dare almost be bold to affirm it the same: for he saith that it hath fat leaves lying flat upon the ground, and as much as he could discern by the figure, agreed with the Hieracium latifolium of Clusius: to which indeed in the leaves it is very like, as you may see by the figure which is in the first place in the foregoing chapter, which very well resembles this plant, if it had more and smaller flowers.

The Temper and Virtues.

            I judge these to be temperate in quality, and endued with a light astriction.

            A. The decoction or the distilled water of this herb taken inwardly, or outwardly applied, conduce much to the mundifying and healing of green wounds; for some boil the herb in wine, and so give it to the wounded patient; and also apply it outwardly.

            B. It also is good against the internal inflammations and hot distempers of the heart, stomach, and liver.

            C. The juice of this herb is with good success dropped into the ears when they are troubled with any pricking or shooting pains or noise.

            D. Lastly, the water hath the same quality as that of Succory. Tragus.

            E. 2: Pena and Lobel affirm this to be commended against whitlows, and in the diseases of the lungs.

            F. 3: This (if it be the Costa of Camerarius) is of singular use in the pthisis, that is, the ulceration or consumption of the lungs: whereupon in Meissen they give the conserve, syrup, and powder thereof for the same purpose: and they also use it in broths and otherwise. Camerarius.