The Description.

            1. Cowslips of Jerusalem, or the true and right Lungwort, hath rough, hairy, and large leaves, of a brown green color, consufedly spotted with divers spots, or drops of white: amongst which spring up certain stalks, a span long, bearing at the top many fine flowers, growing together in bunches like the flowers of Cowslips, saving that they be at the first red, or purple and sometimes blue, and oftentimes all these colours at once. The flowers being fallen, there come small buttons full of seed. The root is black and thready. This is sometimes found with white flowers.

            2. The second kind of Lungwort is like unto the former, but greater in each respect: the leaves bigger than the former, resembling wild Bugloss, yet spotted with white spots like the former: the flowers are like the other, but of an exceeding shining red colour.

Fig. 1197. Narrow-Leaved Jeruasalem Cowslips (3)

            3. Carolus Clusius setteth forth a third kind of Lungwort, which hath rough and hairy leaves, like unto wild Bugloss, but narrower: among which rises up a stalk a foot high, bearing at the top a bundle of blue flowers, in fashion like unto those of Bugloss or the last described.

The Place.

            These plants do grow in moist shadowy woods, and are planted almost everywhere in gardens. Mr. Goodyer found the Pulmonaria foliis echii, being the second, May 25th Anno 1620, flowering in a wood by Holbury house in the New Forest in Hampshire.

The Time.

            They flower for the most part in March and April.

The Names.

            Cowslips of Jeruralem, or Sage of Jerusalem, is called of the herbarists of our time, Pulmonaria, and Pulmonaris: of Cordus, Symphitum sylvestre, or wild Comfrey: but seeing the other is also of nature wild, it may aptly be called Symphytus maculosum or maculatum: in high Dutch, Lungenkraut: in Low Dutch, Onfer Wrouwen Melcruit: in English, Spotted Comfrey, Sage of Jerusalem, Cowslip of Jerusalem, Sage of Bethlehem, and of some Lungwort; notwithstanding there is another Lungwort, of which we will intreat among the kinds of Mosses.

The Temperature.

            Pulmonaria should be of like temperature with the great Comfrey, if the root of this were clammy: but seeing that it is hard and woody, it is of a more drying quality, and more binding.

The Virtues.

            The leaves are used among pot-herbs. The roots are also thought to be good against the infirmities and ulcers of the lungs, and to be of like force with the great Comfrey.