The Desciription.

            1. The stalks of Thorn-Apples are oftentimes above a cubit and a half high, seldom higher, an inch thick, upright and straight, having very few branches, sometimes none at all, but one upright stem; whereupon do grow leaves smooth and even, little or nothing indented about the edges, longer and broader than the leaves of Nightshade, or of the Mad Apple. The flowers come forth of long toothed cups, great, white of the form of a bell, or like the flowers of the great Withwind that rampeth in hedges; but altogether greater and wider at the mouth, sharp cornered at the brims, with certain white chives or threads in the midst, of a stong pontic savour, offending the head when it is smelled unto: in the place of the flower cometh up round fruit full of short and blunt prickles, of the bigness of a green Walnut when it is at the biggest, in which are the seeds of the bigness of tares or of Mandrakes, and of the same form. The herb itself is of a strong savour, and doth stuff the head and causeth drowsiness. The root is small and thready.

            2. There is another kind hereof altogether greater than the former, whose seeds I received of the right honorable the Lord Edward Zouch: which he brought from Constantinople, and of his liberality did bestow them upon me, as also many other rare & strange seeds; and it is that Thorn-apple that I have dispersed through this land, whereof at this present I have great use in surgery, as well in burnings and scalding, as also in virulent and malign ulcers, apostumes, and such like. The which plant hath a very great stalk in fertile ground, bigger than a man's arm, smooth, and green of colour, which a little above the ground divideth itself into sundry branches or arms, in manner of an hedge tree; whereupon are placed many great leaves cut and indented deeply about the edges, with many uneven sharp corners: among these leaves come white round flowers made of one piece in manner of a bell, shutting itself up close toward night, as do the flowers of the great Bindweed, whereunto it is very like, of a sweet smell, but so strong, that it offends the senses. The fruit followeth round, sometimes of the fashion of an egg, set about on every part with most sharp prickles; wherein is contained very much seed of the bigness of tares, and of the same fashion. The root is thick, made of great and small strings: the whole plant is sown, beareth his fruit, and perisheth the same year. There are are some varieties of this plant, in the colour and doubleness of the flowers.

The Place.

            1. This plant is rare and strange as yet in England: I received seeds thereof from John Robin of Paris, an excellent herbarist; which did grow and bore flowers, but perished before the fruit came to ripeness.

            2. The Thorn-Apple was brought in seed from Constantinople by the right honourable the Lord Edward Zouch, and given unto me, and beareth fruit and ripe seed.

The Time.

            The first is to be sown in a bed of horse-dung, as we do cucumbers and Musk-melons. The other may be sown in March or April, as other seeds are.

The Names.

            The first of these Thorn-Apples may be called in Latin, Stramonia, and Pomum, or Malum spinosum: of some, Corona regia, and Melospinum. The Italians name it, Paracoculi: it seemeth to Valerius Cordus to be Hyoscyamus peruvianus, or Henbane of Peru: Cardanus doubteth whether it should be inserted among the Nightshades as a kind thereof: of Matthiolus and others it is thought to be Nux methel: Serapio, cap. 375, saith, That Nux methel is like unto Nux vomica; the seed whereof is like that of Mandrake: the husk is rough or full of prickles; the taste pleasing and strong: the quality thereof is cold in the fourth degree. Which description agreeth herewith, except in the form or shape it should have with Nux vomica: Anguillaria suspecteth it to be Hippomanes which Theocritas mentioneth, wherewith in his second Eclogue he showeth that horses are made mad: for Crateuas, whom Theocritus his scholiast doth cite, writeth, That the plant of Hippomanes hath a fruit full of prickles, as hath the fruit of wild Cucumbers. In English it may be called Thorn-Apple, or the Apple of Peru.

            The words of Theocritus, Idyll. 2. are, in English:

Hippomanes 'mongst the Arcadians' springs, by which even all
The colts and agile mares in mountains mad do fall.

            Now in the Greek Scholia amongst the Expositions there is this: Crateuas saith, That the plant hath a fruit like the wild Cucumber, but blacker; the leaves are like a poppy, but thorny or prickly. Thus I expound these words of the Greek scholiast, being pag. 51 of the edition set forth by Dan. Heinsius, Ann. Dom. 1603. Julius Scaliger blames Theocritus, because he calls Hippomanes phytos, a plant: but Heinsius, as you may see in his notes upon Theocritus, pag. 120, probably judges, that the word phytos in this place signifies nothing but a thing growing. Such as are curious may have recourse to the places quoted, where they may find it more largely handled than is fit for me in this place to insist upon. There is no plant at this day known, in mine opinion, whereto Crateuas his description may be more fitly referred, than to the Papaver spinosum, or Ficus infernalis, which we shall hereafter describe.

The Nature.

            The whole plant is cold in the fourth degree, and of a drowsy and numbing quality, not inferior to Mandrake.

The Virtues.

            A. The juice of Thorn-Apples boiled with hog's grease to the form of an unguent or salve, cureth all inflammations whatsoever, all manner of burnings or scaldings, as well of fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, as that which comes by lightning, and that in very short time, as myself have found by my daily practise, to my great credit and profit. The first experience came from Colchester, where Mistress Lobel a merchant's wife there being most grievously burned with lightning, and nor finding ease or cure in any other thing, by this found help when all hope was past, by the report of Mr. William Ramme, public notary of the said town, was perfectly cured.

            B. The leaves stamped small, and boiled with olive oil until the herbs be as it were burnt, then strained and set to the fire again with some wax, rosin, and a little Turpentine, and made into a salve, doth most speedily cure old ulcers, new and fresh wounds, ulcers upon the glandulous part of the yard, and other sores of hard curation.