The Description.

            1. The Orpine with purple flowers is lower and lesser than the common Orpine: the stalks be slenderer, and for the most part lie along upon the ground. The leaves are also thinner and longer, and of a more blue green, yet well bodied, standing thicker below than above, confusedly set together without order: the flowers in the tufts at the tops of the stalks be of a pale blue tending to purple. The roots be not set with lumps or knobbed kernels, but with a multitude of hairy strings.

            2. This second Orpine, as it is known to few, so hath it found no name, but that some herbarists do call it Telephium sempervivum or virens: for the stalks of the other do wither in winter, the root remaineth green; but the stalks and leaves of this endure also the sharpenss of winter; and therefore we may call it in English, Orpine Everlasting, or Never-dying Orpine. This hath lesser and rounder leaves than any of the former: the flowers are red, and the root fibrous.

Fig. 785. Creeping Orpine (3)

            3. Cluisus received the seeds of this from Ferranto Imperato of Naples, under the name of Telephium legitimum; and. he hath thus given us the history thereof: It produces from the top of the root many branches spread upon the ground, which are about a foot long, set with many leaves, especially such as are not come to flower; for the other have fewer: these leaves are smaller, less thick also and succulent than those of the former kinds, neither are they so brittle: their colour is green, inclining a little to blue: the tops of the branches are plentifully stored with little flowers, growing thick together, and composed of five little white leaves apiece: which fading, there succeed cornered seed-vessels, full of a brownish seed. The root is sometimes as thick as one's little finger, tough, white, divided into some branches, and living many years.

The Place, Time, Names, Temperature, and Virtues.

            The first grow not in England. The second flourishes in my garden. The third is a stranger with us. They flower when the common Orpine doth. Their names are specified in their several descriptions: and their temperature and faculties in working are referred to the common Orpine.