The Kinds

            Our age hath set down two kinds of Teasels: the tame, and the wild. These differ not save only in the husbanding; for all things that are planted and manured do more flourish, and come for the most part fitter for man's use.

The Description.

            1. Garden Teasel is also of the number of the Thistles; it bringeth forth a stalk that is straight, very long, jointed, and full of prickles: the leaves grow forth of the joints by couples, not only opposite or set one right against another, but also compassing the stalk about, and fastened together; and so fastened, that they hold dew and rain water in manner of a little baisin: these be long, of a light green colour, and like to those of Lettuce, but full of prickles in the edges, and have on the outside all alongst the ridge stiffer prickles: on the tops of the stalks stand heads with sharp prickles like those of the Hedgehog, and crooking backward at the point like hooks: out of which heads grow little flowers. The seed is like Fennel seed, and in taste bitter: the heads wax white when they grow old, and there are found in the midst of them when they are cut, certain little maggots: the root is white, and of a mean length.

            2. The second kind of Teasel which is also a kind of Thistle, is very like unto the former, but his leaves are smaller & narrower: his flowers of a purple colour, and the hooks of the Teasel nothing so hard or sharp as the other, nor good for any use in dressing of cloth.

Fig. 1657. Shepherd's Rod (3)

            3. There is another kind of Teasel, being a wild kind thereof, and accounted among these Thistles, growing higher than the rest of his kinds; but his knobbed heads are no bigger than a Nutmeg, in all other things else they are like to the other wild kinds. This hath the lower leaves deeply cut in with one gash on each side at the bottom of the leaf, which little ears are omitted in the figure: the leaves also are less than the former, and narrower at the setting on, and hold no water as the two former do: the whole plant is also much less.

The Place.

            The first called the tame Teasel is sown in this country in gardens, to serve the use of fullers and clothworkers.

            The second kind groweth in moist places by brooks, rivers, and such like places.

            The third I found growing in moist places in the highway leading from Braintree to Henningham Castle in Essex, and not in any other place except here & there a plant upon the highway from Much Dunmow to London. Thus our author: I found it growing in great plenty at Edgecombe by Croydon, close by the gate of the house of my much honoured friend Sir John Tunstall.

The Time.

            These flower for the most part in June and July.

The Names.

            Teasel is called in Greek, and likewise in Latin, Dipsacus, Labrum veneris, and Carduus veneris: it is termed Labrum veneris, and Laver lavacrum, of the form of the leaves made up in fashion of a baisin, which is never without water: they commonly call it Virga pastoris minor, and Carduus fullonum: in high Dutch, Karden Distel: in low Dutch Caerden: in Spanish Cardencha: and Cardo Penteador: in Italian, Dissaco, and Cardo: in French, Chardon de foullon, Verge à bergier: in English, Teasel, Card Teasel, and Venus' Baisin.

            The third is thought to be Galedragon plinii: of which he hath written in his 27th book, the tenth Chapter.

The Temperature.

            The roots of these plants are dry in the second degree and have a certain cleansing faculty.

The Virtues.

            A. There is small use of Teasel in medicines: the heads (as we have said) are used to dress woolen cloth with.

            B. Dioscorides writeth, that the root being boiled in wine, & stamped till it is come to the substance of a salve, healeth chaps and fistulæ of the fundament, if it be applied thereunto; and that this medicine must be preserved in a box of copper, and that also it is reported to be good for all kinds of warts.

            C. It is needless here to allege those things that are added touching the little worms or maggots found in the heads of the Teasel, and which are to be hanged about the neck, or to mention the like thing that Pliny reporteth of Galedragon: for they are nothing else but most vain and trifling toys, as myself have proved a little before the impression hereof, having a most grievous ague and of long continuance: notwithstanding physic charms, these worms hanged about my neck, spiders put into a walnut shell, and divers such foolish toys that I was constrained to take by fantastic peoples' procurement; notwithstanding I say, my help came from God himself, for these medicines and all other such things did me no good at all.