Fig. 1698. Marsh Trefoil

The Description.

            1. The great Marsh Trefoil hath thick fat stalks, weak and tender, full of a spongeous pith, very smooth, and of a cubit long: whereon do grow leaves like to those of the garden Bean, set upon the stalks three joined together like the other Trefoils, smooth, shining, and of a deep green colour: among which toward the top of the stalks standeth a bush of feather-like flowers of a white colour, dashed over slightly with a wash of light carnation: after which the seed followeth, contained in small buttons, or knobby husks, of a brown-yellowish colour like unto Millet, and of a bitter taste: the roots creep divers ways in the middle marsh ground, being full of joints, white within, and full of pores, and spongy, bringing forth divers by-shoots, stalks, and leaves, by which means it is easily increased, and largely multiplied.

            2. The second differeth not from the precedent saving it is altogether lesser, wherein consisteth the difference, if there be any: for doubtless I think it is the self-same in each respect, and is made greater and lesser, aecording to his place of growing, climate, and country.

The Place.

            These grow in marsh and fenny places, and upon boggy grounds almost everywhere.

The Time.

            They flower and flourish from June to the end of August.

The Names.

            Marsh Trefoil is called in High Dutch, Biberklee, that is to say, Trifolium castoris, or Trifolium fibrinum: in Low Dutch, of the likeness that the leaves have with the Garden Beans, Borzboomen, that is to say, Faselus hircinus or Boona hircina: the later herbarists call it Trifolium palustre, and paludosum: of some, Isopyrum: in English, Marsh Clover, Marsh Trefoil, and Buck's-Beans.

The Temperature and Virtues.

            A. The seed of Isopyrum, saith Dioscorides, if it be taken with mead or honeyed water, is good against the cough and pain in the chest.

            B. It is also a remedy for those that have weak livers and spit blood, for as Galen saith it cleanseth and cutteth tough humours, having also adjoined with it an astringent or binding quality.