Fig. 969. Kinds of Golden Flower-Gentle (1-4)

The Description.

            1. This yellow Everlasting or Flower-Gentle, called of the later herbarists Yellow Stœchas, is a plant that hath stalks of a span long, and slender, whereupon do grow narrow leaves white and downy, as are also the stalks. The flowers stand on the tops of the stalks, consisting of a scattered or disordered scaly tuft, of a reasonable good smell, of a bright yellow colour; which being gathered before they be ripe, do keep their colour and beauty a long time without withering, as do most of the Cottonweeds or Cudweeds, whereof this is a kind. The root is black and slender. There is some variety in the heads of this plant, for they are sometimes very large and longish, as Camerarius notes in his Epitome of Matthiolus; otherwhiles they are very compact and round, and of the bigness of the ordinary.

            2. This grows to some foot or more high, and hath rough downy leaves like the former, but broader: the flowers are longer, but of the same yellow colour and long continuance as those of the last described. This varies somthing in the breadth and length of the leaves.

            3. About Nemausium [Nîmes] and Montpellier there grows another kind of Chrysocome, or as Lobel terms it, Stœchas citrina altera, but that as this plant is in all points like, so in all points it is lesser and slenderer, blacker, and not of such beauty as the former, growing more near unto an ash colour, consisting of many small twigs a foot long. The root is lesser, and hath fewer strings annexed thereto; and it is seldom found but in the cliffs and crags, among rubbish, and on walls of cities. This plant is brown, without scent or savour like the other: every branch hath his own bunch of flowers coming forth of a scaly or round head, but not a number heaped together as in the first kind. It prospereth well in our London gardens.

            4. There is a kind hereof being a very rare plant, and as rare to be found where it naturally groweth, which is in the woods among the Scarlet Oaks between Sommières and Montpellier. It is a fine and beautiful plant, in show passing the last described Stœchas citrina altera: but the leaves of this kind are broad, and somewhat hoary, as is all the rest of the whole plant; the stalk a foot long, and beareth the very flower of Stœchas citrina altera, but bigger and longer, and somewhat like the flowers of Lactuca agrestis: the root is like the former, without any manifest smell, little known, hard to find, whose faculties be yet unknown.

Fig. 970. Wild Goldilocks (5)

            5. This is a wild kind (which Lobel setteth forth) that here may be inferred, called Eliochrysos sylvestris. The woolly or flocky leaf of this plant resembleth Gnaphalium vulgare, but that it is somewhat broader in the middle: the flowers grow clustering together upon the tops of the branches, of a yellow colour; and almost like those of Maudlin. The roots are black and woody.

The Place.

            The first mentioned grows in Italy, and other hot countries: and the second grows in rough and gravelly places almost everywhere near unto the Rhine, especially between Speyer and Worms.

The Time

            They flower in June and July.

The Names.

            Golden flower is called in Latin Coma aurea, of his golden locks or beautiful bush, and also Tineraria: in shops, Stœchas citrina, Amaranthus luteus, Fuchsii, & Tragi: of some, Linaria aurea, but nor truly: in Greek, Chrysocome: in Dutch, Rennbloemen, and Motten cruyt: in Italian, Amarantho giallo: in English, Gold-flower, God's flower, Goldilocks, and Golden Stœchas.

The Temperature and Virtues

            A. The flowers of Golden Stoechados boiled in wine and drunk, expel worms out of the belly, and being boiled in lye made of strong ashes doth kill lice and nits, if they be bathed therewith. The other faculties are refered to the former plants mentioned in the last chapter.