The Description.

            1. This kind of Trefoil, called Medica, hath many small and slender ramping branches crawling and creeping along upon the ground, set full of broad leaves slightly indented about the edges: the flowers are very small, and of a pale yellow colour, which turn into round wrinkled knobs, like the water snail, or the fish called periwinkle: wherein is contained flat seed fashioned like a little kidney, in colour yellow, in taste like a vetch or pea; the root is small, and dieth when the seed is ripe: it grows in my garden, and is good to feed cattle fat.

            There are many varieties of these plants, and they chiefly consist in the fruit; for some are smooth and flat, as this first described: other some are rough and prickly, some with lesser, and other some with bigger prickles; as also with them standing divers ways, some are only rough, and of those some are as big as a small nut, other some no bigger than a pea. I give you here the descriptions of three rough ones, (as I received them from M. Goodyer) whereof the last is of the sea, which, as you may see, our author did but superficially describe.

2. Medicæ maioris Bœtica, species prima, spinulis intortis.

            This hath four-square reddish streaked hairy trailing branches, like the small English Medica, greater and longer, four or five foot long: the leaves are also smooth, growing three together, neither sharp pointed, nor yet so broad at the top as the said English Medica, but blunt topped, with a small black spot in the midst, not crooked: the flowers are also yellow, three, four, or five on a footstalk: after cometh a round writhed fruit fully as big as a hazelnut, with small prickles not standing fore-right, but lying flat on the fruit, finely wrapped, plaited, folded, or interlaced together, wherein lieth wrapped the seed in fashion of a kidney, very like a Kidney Bean, but four times smaller, and flatter, of a shining black colour without, like polished jet; containing a white kernel within: the root is like the former, and perisheth also at winter.

Medicæ maioris Bœticæ spinosa species altera.

            The branches also creep on the ground, and are streaked smooth four square, reddish here and there, three or four foot long: the leaves are smooth, finely notched about the edges, sharp pointed, without black spots, very like Medica pericarpio plano: the flowers are small and yellow like the other: the fruit is round, writhed or twined in also, fully as big as a hazelnut, somewhat cottony or woolly, with short sharp prickles: wherein lieth also wrapped a shining black kidney-like seed, so like the last described, that they are not to be discerned apart: the root is also alike, and perisheth at winter.

Fig. 1707. Sea Medick (3)

            3. This kind also of Trefoil, (called Medica marina: in English, Sea Trefoil, growing naturally by the seaside about Westchester, and upon the Mediterranean sea coast, and about Venice) hath leaves very like unto the common meadow Trefoil, but thicker, and covered over with flocky hoariness like Gnaphalium, after the manner of most of the sea herbs: the flowers are yellow: the seeds wrinkled like the former, but in quantity they be lesser.

Medica marinæ spinosæ species.

            The branches of this are the least and shortest of all the rest, little exceeding a foot or two in length, and are four square, green, somewhat hairy, and trailing on the ground: the leaves are like to those of Medica pericarpio plano, not fully so sharp pointed, without black spots, soft, hairy, three on a footstalk: the flowers grow alongst the branches, on very small footstalks, forth of the bosoms of the leaves, (not altogether on or near the tops of the branches) and are very small and yellow, but one on a footstalk: after cometh small round writhed fruit, no bigger than a pea; with very short sharp prickles, wherein is contained yellowish seed of the fashion of a kidney like the former, and is the hardest to be plucked forth of any of the rest; the root is also whitish, like the roots of the other, and also perisheth at winter. Aug. 2. 1621. John Goodyer.

The Place.

            The first is sown in the fields of Germany, Italy, and other countries, to feed their cattle, as we in England do Buckwheat: we have a small quantity thereof in our gardens, for pleasures' sake.

            The third groweth near unto the sea side in divers places.

The Time.

            Medica must be sown in April; it flowereth in June and July: the fruit is ripe in the end of August.

The Names

            Medick Fodder is called of some Trifolium cochleatum, and Medica: in French, L'herbe a Limasson: in Spanish, Mielguas: of the Valentians and Catalans, Alfafa, by a word either barbarous or Arabic: for the chief of the Arabian writers, Avicenna, doth call Medica, Cot, Alaseleti, and Alfasfasa.

            The other is called Sea Clover, and Medick Fodder of the Sea.

The Temperature and virtues.

            A. Medick Fodder is of temperature cold, for which cause it is applied green to such inflammations and infirmities as have need of cooling.