Fig. 752. Dyer's Weed or Yellow Weed

The Description.

            Dyer's weed hath long narrow and greenish yellow leaves, not much unlike to Woad, but a great deal smaller and narrower; from among which cometh up a stalk two cubits high, beset with little narrow leaves: even to the top of the stalk come forth small pale yellow flowers, closely clustering together one above another, which do turn into small buttons, cut as it were cross-wise, wherein the seed is contained. The root is very long and single.

The Place.

            Dyers weed groweth of itself in moist, barren, and untiled places, in and about villages almost everywhere.

The Names.

            Pliny, lib. 33 cap. 5 maketh mention by the way of this herb, and calleth it Lutea: Vitruvius in his seventh book, Lutum: it is the Anticarhinum of Tragus: & Pseudostruthium of Mathiolus: Virgil, in his Bucolics, Eclog 4, calls it also Lutum; in English, Weld, or Dyer's Weed.

The Time.

            This herb flourisheth in June and July.

The Nature.

            It is hot and dry of temperature.

The Virtues.

            A. The root as also the whole herb heats and dries in the third degree: it cuts, attenuates, resolveth, opens, digests. Some also commend it against the punctures and bites of venomous creatures, not only outwardly applied to the wound, but also taken inwardly in drink.

            B. Also it is commended against the infection of the plague: some for these reasons term it Theriacaria; Matthiolus.