The Kinds.

            There be four sorts of Turnsole, differing one from another in many notable points, as in greatness and smallness, in colour of flowers, in form and shape.

The description.

            1. The Great Turnsole hath great straight stalks covered with a white hairy cotton, especially about the top; the leaves are soft and hairy in handling, in shape like the leaves of Basil: the flowers grow at the top of the branches, in colour white, thick together in rows upon one side of the stalk, which stalk doth bend or turn backward like the tail of a scorpion: the root is small and hard.

            2. The Small Turnsole hath many little and weak branches trailing upon the ground, whereupon do grow small leaves, like those of the lesser Basil. The flowers do grow without any certain order, amongst the leaves and tender branches, grey of colour, with a little spot of yellow in the midst, the which turn into crooked tails like those of the precedent, but not altogether so much.

Fig. 538. Hairy Turnsole (3)

            3. Hairy Turnsole hath many feeble and weak branches trailing upon the ground, set with small leaves, lesser than the great Turnsole, of which it is a kind, having the seed in small chaffy husks, which do turn back like the tail of a scorpion, just after the manner of the first described.

Fig. 539. Widow-Wail Turnsole (4)

            4. This kind of Turnsole hath leaves very like to those of the great Turnsole, but of a blacker green colour: the flowers be yellow, and unprofitable; for they are not succeeded by the fruit, but after them cometh out the fruit hanging upon small footstalks three square, and in every corner there is a small seed like to those of the Tythimales; the root is small and thready.

The Place.

            Turnsole, as Dioscorides saith, doth grow in fenny grounds and near unto pools and lakes. They are strangers in England as yet: It doth grow about Montpellier in Languedoc, where it is had in great use to stain and dye clouts withal, wherewith through Europe meat is coloured.

The Time.

            They flourish especially in the summer solstice, or about the time when the sun entereth into Cancer.

The Names.

            The Grecians call it Heliotropium: the Latins keep these names, Heliotropium magnum, and scorpiurum: of Raellius, Herba cancri: it is named Heliotropium, not because it is turned about at the daily motion of the sun, but by reason it flowereth in the summer solstice, at which time the sun being farthest gone from the equinoctial circle, returneth to the same: and scorpiurum of the twiggy tops, that bow backward like a scorpion's tail: of the Italians, Tornesole bobo; in French, Tournsol: some think it to be Herba Clytiæ, into which the poets feign Clytia to be metamorphosed whence one hath these verses:

Herba velut Clytiæ semper petit obvia solem,
Sic pia mens Christum, quo prece spectet, habet.

["As Clytia's herb always seeks the sun,
So the pious mind always seeks Christ in prayer."]

The Nature.

            Turnsole, as Paulus Æginata writeth, is hot and dry, and of a binding faculty.

The Virtues.

            A. A good handful of great Turnsole boiled in wine, and drunk, doth gently purge the body of hot choleric humours and tough clammy or slimy phlegm.

            B. The same boiled in wine and drunk is good against the stings of scorpions, or other venomous beasts, and is very good to be applied outwardly upon the grief or wound.

            C. The seed stamped and laid upon warts and such like excrescences, or superfluous out-growings, causeth them to fall away.

            D. The small Turnsole and his seed boiled with Hyssop, Cresses and saltpetre, and drunk, driveth forth flat and round worms.

            E. With the small Turnsole they in France do dye linen rags and clouts into a perfect purple colour, wherewith cooks and confectioners colour jellies, wines, meats, and sundry confectures: which clouts in shops be called Turnsole, after the name of the herb.