The Description.

Danewort, as it is not a shrub, neither is it altogether an herby plant, but as it were a plant participating of both, being doubtless one of the Elders, as may appear both by the leaves, flowers, and fruit, as also by the smell and taste.

Wallwort is very like unto Elder in leaves, spoky tufts, and fruit, but it hath not a woody stalk; it bringeth forth only green stalks, which wither away in winter: these are edged, and full of joints, like to the young branches and shoots of Elder: the leaves grow by couples, with distances, wide, and consist of many small leaves which stand upon a thick ribbed stalk, of which every one is long, broad, and cut in the edges like a saw, wider and greater than the leaves of the common Elder tree: at the top of the stalks there grow tufts of white flowers tipped with red, with five little chives in them pointed with black, which turn into black berries like the Elder, in the which be little long seed: the root is tough, and of a good and reasonable length, better for physic's use than the leaves of Elder.

The Place.

Danewort grows in untoiled places near common ways, and in the borders of fields: it groweth plentifully in the lane at Kilburn Abbey by London: also in a field by St. John's near Dartford in Kent: and also in the highway at old Branford town's end next London, and in many other places.

The Time.

The flowers are perfected in summer, and the berries in autumn.

The Names.

It is named in Greek, Chamaeacte, that is Sambucus humulis, or low Elder: It is called in Latin, Ebulus, and Ebulum: in High Dutch, Attich: in Low Dutch, Hadich: in Italian, Ebulo: in French, Hieble: in Spanish, Yezgos: in English, Wallwort, Danewort, and Dwarf Elder.

The Temperature.

Wallwort is of temperature hot and dry in the third degree, and of a singular quality, which Galen doth attribute unto it, to waste and consume; and also it hath a strange and special faculty to purge by the stool: the roots be of greatest force, the leaves have the chiefest strength to digest and consume.

The Virtues.

A. The roots of Wallwort boiled in wine and drunken are good against the dropsy, for they purge downwards watery humours.

B. The leaves do consume and waste away hard swellings if they be applied poultice-wise, or in a fomentation or bath.

C. Dioscorides saith, that the roots of Wallwort do soften and open the matrix, and also correct the infirmities thereof, if they be boiled for a bath to sit in; and dissolve the swellings and pains of the belly.

D. The juice of the root of Danewort doth make the hair black.

E. The young and tender leaf quencheth hot inflammations, being applied with barley meal: it is with good success laid upon burnings, scaldings, and upon the bitings of mad dogs; and with bull's tallow or goat's suet it is a remedy for the gout.

F. The seed of Wallwort drunk in the quantity of a dram is the most excellent purger of watery humours in the world, and therefore most singular against the dropsy.

G. If one scruple of the seed be bruised and taken with syrup of Roses and a little sack, it cureth the dropsy, and easeth the gout, mightily purging downwards waterish humours, being once taken in the week.