Fig. 553. Bitter-sweet

The Description.

            Bitter-sweet bringeth forth woody stalks as doth the Vine, parted into many slender creeping branches, by which it climbeth and taketh hold of hedges and shrubs next unto it. The bark of the oldest stalks are rough and whitish, of the colour of ashes, with the outward rind of a bright green colour, but the younger branches are green as are the leaves: the wood brittle, having in it a spongy pith; it is clad with long leaves, smooth, sharp pointed, lesser than those of the Bindweed. At the lower part of the same leaves doth grow on either side one small or lesser leaf like unto two ears. The flowers be small, and somewhat clustered together, consisting of five little leaves apiece, of a perfect blue colour, with a certain prick or yellow pointel in the middle: which being past, there do come in place fair berries, more long than round, at the first green, but very red when they be ripe; of a sweet taste at the first, but after very unpleasant, of a strong savour, growing together in clusters like burnished coral. The root is of a mean bigness, and full of strings.

            I have found another sort which bringeth forth most pleasant white flowers with yellow pointels in the middle, in other respects agreeing with the former.

The Place.

            Bitter-sweet doth grow in moist places about ditches, rivers, and hedges, almost everywhere.

            The other sort with the white flowers I found in a ditch side against the right honorable the Earl of Sussex his garden wall at his house in Bermondsey Street by London, as you go from the court which is full of trees, unto a farmhouse near thereunto.

The Time.

            The leaves come forth in the spring, the flowers in July, the berries are ripe in August.

The Names.

            The later herbarists have named this plant Dulcamara, Amarodulcis, and Amaradulcis: they call it also Solanum lignosum, and siliquastrum: Pliny calleth it Melortum: Theophrastus, Vitis sylvestris: in English we call it Bitter-sweet, and Woody Nightshade. But every author must for his credit say something, although to small purpose; for Vitis sylvestris is that which we call Our Lady's Seal, which is no kind of Nightshade: for Tamus and Vitis sylvestris are both one; as likewise Solanum lignosum or fruticosum; and also Solanum rubrum: whereas indeed it is no such plant, nor any of the Nightshades, although I have followed others in placing it here. Therefore those that use to mix the berries thereof in compositions of divers cooling ointments, instead of the berries of Nightshade have committed the greater error; for the fruit of this is not cold at all, but hot, as forthwith shall be showed. Dioscorides saith it is Cyclaminus altera; describing it by the description of those with white flowers aforefaid, whereunto it doth very well agree. Dioscorides describeth his Muscoso flore with a mossy flower, that is, such an one as consists of small chives or threads, which can by no means be agreeable to the flower of this plant.

The Temperature.

            The leaves and fruit of Bitter-sweet are in temperature hot and dry, cleansing and wasting away.

The virtues.

            A. The decoction of the leaves is reported to remove the stoppings of the liver and gall; and to be drunk with good success against the yellow jaundice.

            B. The juice is good for those that have fallen from high places, and have been thereby bruised, or dry beaten: for it is thought to dissolve blood congealed or cluttered anywhere in the entrails, and to heal the hurt places.

            C. Hieronymus Tragus teacheth to make a decoction of wine with the wood finely sliced and cut into small pieces; which he reporteth to purge gently both by urine and siege those that have the dropsy or jaundice.

            D. Dioscorides doth ascribe unto Cyclaminus altera, or Bitter-sweet with white flowers as I conceive it, the like faculties.

            E. The fruit (saith he) being drunk in the weight of one dram, with three ounces of white wine, for forty days together helpeth the spleen.

            F. It is drunk against difficulty of breathing: it throughly cleanseth women that are newly brought abed.