The Description.

            1. The great double Crowfoot or Bachelor's Button hath many jagged leaves of a deep green colour: among which rise up stalks, whereon do grow fair yellow flowers exceeding double, of a shining yellow colour, oftentimes thrusting forth of the midst of the said flowers one other smaller flower: the root is round, or fashioned like a Turnip; the form whereof hath caused it to be called of some St. Anthony's Turnip, or Rape Crowfoot. The seed is wrapped in a cluster of rough knobs, as are most of the Crowfoots.

            2. The Double Yellow Crowfoot hath leaves of a bright green colour, with many weak branches trailing upon the ground; whereon do grow very double yellow flowers like unto the precedent, but altogether lesser. The whole plant is likewise without any manifest difference, saving that these flowers do never bring forth any smaller flower out of the middle of the greater, as the other doth, and also hath no Turnip or knobby root at all, wherein consisteth the difference.

Fig. 1388. Double White Crowfoot (3)

            3. The white double Crowfoot hath many great leaves deeply cut with great gashes, and those snipped about the edges. The stalks divide thernselves into divers brittle branches, on the tops whereof do grow very double flowers as white as snow, and of the bigness of our yellow Batchelor's Button. The root is tough, limber, and disperseth itself far abroad, whereby it greatly increaseth.

The Place.

            The first and third are planted in gardens for the beauty of the flowers, and likewise the second, which hath of late been brought out of Lancashire unto our London gardens, by a curious gentleman in the searching forth of simples, Mr. Thomas Hesketh, who found it growing wild in the town fields of a small village called Hesketh, not far from Latham in Lancashire.

The Time.

            They flower from the beginning of May to the end of June.

The Names.

            Dioscorides hath made no mention hereof; but Apuleius hath separated the first of these from the others, intreating of it apart, and naming it by a peculiar name Batrachion; whereupon it is also called Apuleii batrachion, or Apuleius' Crowfoot.

            It is commonly called Rapum S. Anthonii, or Saint Anthony's Rape: it may be called in English, Rape Crowfoot: it is called generally about London, Bachelor's Buttons and Double Crowfoot: in Dutch, S. Anthony Rapkin. Thus our author, but these names and faculties properly belong to the Ranunculus bulbosus, described in the sixth place of the last chapter; and also to the first double one here described; for they vary little but in colour, and the singleness and doubleness of their flowers.

            The third is called of Lobel, Ranunculus niveus polyanthos: of Tabernamontanus, Ranunculus albus multiflorus: in English, Double white Crowfoot, or Bachelor's buttons.

The Temperature.

            These plants do bite as the other Crowfoots do.

The Virtues.

            A. The chiefest virtue is in the root, which being stamped with salt is good for those that have a plague sore; if it be presently in the beginning tied to the thigh, in the middle between the groin or flank and the knee: by means whereof the poison and malignity of the disease is drawn from the inward parts, by the emunctory or cleansing place of the flank, into those outward parts of less account: for it exulcerateth and presently raiseth a blister, to what part of the body soever it is applied. And if it chance that the sore happeneth under the arm, then it is requisite to apply it to the arm a little above the elbow. My opinion is, that any of the Crowfoots will do the same: my reason is, because they all and every of them do blister and cause pain, wheresoever they be applied, and pain doth draw unto itself more pain; for the nature of pain is to resort unto the weakest place, and where it may find pain; and likewise the poison and venomous quality of that disease is to resort unto that painful place.

            B. Apuleius saith further, That if it be hanged in a linen cloth about the neck of him that is lunatic, in the wane of the moon, when the sign shall be in the first degree of Taurus or Scorpio, that then he shall forthwith be cured. Moreover, the herb Batrachion stamped with vinegar, root and all, is used for them that have black scars or such-like marks on their skins, it eats them out, and leaves a colour like that of the body.