The Description.

            1. Broad-Leaved Friar's Hood hath a leaf like Ivy, broad and sharp pointed, but far less, approaching near to the form of those of Cuckoo-Pint: the stalk thereof is small and slender: the husk or hose is little; the pistil small, and of a black purplish colour; the cluster when it is ripe is red; the kernels small; the root white, having the form of Aron or Cuckoo-Pint, but lesser, whereof doubtless it is a kind.

            2. The second Friar's Hood hath many leaves, long and narrow, smooth and glittering: The husk or hose is narrow and long; the pistil that cometh forth of it is slender, in form like a great earthworm, of a blackish purple colour, as hath also the inside of the hose, upon which, hard to the ground, and sometimes a little within the ground, groweth a certain bunch or cluster of berries, green at the first, and afterwards red: the root is round and white like the others.

The Place.

            These plants are strangers in England, but common in Italy, and especially in Tuscany, about Rome, and in Dalmatia, as Aloisius Anguillara witnesseth: notwithstanding I have them in my garden.

The Time.

            The flowers and fruit of these come to perfection with those of Cuckoo-Pint and Dragons.

The Names.

            Friar's Hood is called in Latin, Arisarum: but Pliny calleth it Aris; for in his twenty-fourth book; cap. 16, he saith, That Aris which groweth in Egypt is like Aron or Cuckoo-Pint: it may be called in English after the Latin name Arisarum; but in my opinion it may be more fitly called Friar's hood, or Friar's Cowl, to which the flowers seem to be like; whereupon the Spaniards name it Frailillos, as Dalechampius noteth.

The Temperature.

            Friar's Cowl is like in power and faculty to the Cuckoo-Pint, yet is it more biting, as Galen saith.

The Virtues.

            A. There is no great use of these plants in physic; but it is reported that they stay running or eating sores or ulcers: and likewise that there is made of the roots certain compositions called in Greek collyria, good against fistulas: and being put into the secret part of any living thing, it rotteth the same, as Diororides writeth.