The Description.
Apiastrum, or Melissa, is our common best knowne Balme or Bawme, having many square stalkes and blackish leaves like to Ballote, or blacke Horehound, but larger, of a pleasant smell, drawing neere in smell and savour unto a Citron: the floures are of a Carnation colour; the root of a wooddy substance.
The Place.
Bawme is much sowen and set in Gardens, and oftentimes it groweth of it selfe in Woods and mountaines, and other wilde places: it is profitably planted in Gardens, as Pliny writeth, lib. 21. cap. 12. about places where Bees are kept, because they are delighted with this herbe above others, whereupon it hath beene called Apiastrum: for, saith he, when they are straied away, they doe finde their way home againe by it, as Virgil writeth in his Georgicks:
--Here liquors cast in fitting sort, Of bruised Bawme and more base Honywort.
All these I have in my garden from yeare to yeare.
The Vertues.
Bawme drunke in wine is good against the bitings of venomous beasts, comforts the heart, and driveth away all melancholy and sadnesse.
The hives of Bees being rubbed with the leaves of Bawme, causeth the Bees to keep together, and causeth others to come unto them.
The later age, together with the Arabians and Mauritanians, affirme Balme to be singular good for the heart, and to be a remedy against the infirmities thereof; for Avicen in his booke written of the infirmities of the heart, teacheth that Bawme makes the heart merry and joyfull, and strengtheneth the vitall spirits.
Dioscorides writeth, That the leaves drunke with wine, or applied outwardly, are good against the stingings of venomous beasts, and the biting of mad dogs: also it helpeth the tooth-ache, the mouth being washed with the decoction, and is likewise good for those that cannot take breath unlesse they hold their neckes upright.
Smiths Bawme or Carpenters Bawme is most singular to heale up greene wounds that are cut with yron; it cureth the rupture in short time. Dioscorides and Pliny have attributed like vertues unto this kinde of Bawme, which they call Iron-wort. The leaves (say they) being applied, close up wounds without any perill of inflammation. Pliny saith that it is of so great vertue, that though it be but tied to his sword that hath given the wound, it stancheth the bloud.