The Description.
Flax riseth up with slender and round stalks. The leaves thereof bee long, narrow, and sharpe pointed: on the tops of the sprigs are faire blew floures, after which spring up little round knobs or buttons, in which is contained the seed, in forme somewhat long, smooth, glib or slipperie, of a darke colour. The roots be small and threddy.
The Place.
It prospereth best in a fat and fruitfull soile, in moist and not dry places; for it requireth, as Columella saith, a very fat ground, and somewhat moist. Some, saith Palladius, do sow it thicke in a leane ground, and by that meanes the flaxe groweth fine. Pliny saith that it is to be sowne in gravelly places, especially in furrowes: and that it burneth the ground, and maketh it worser: which thing also Virgil testifieth in his Georgickes. In English thus:
Flaxe and Otes sowne consume
The moisture of a fertile field:
The same worketh Poppy, whose
Juyce a deadly sleepe doth yeeld.
The Time.
Flaxe is sowne in the spring, it floureth in June and July. After it is cut downe (as Pliny, lib. 19. cap. 1. saith) the stalks are put into the water, subject to the heat of the Sun, & some weight laid on them to be steeped therein; the loosenes of the rinde is a signe when it is well steeped: then is it taken up and dried in the Sun, and after used as most huswives can tell better than my selfe.
The Vertues.
The oile which is pressed out of the seed, is profitable for many purposes in Physicke and Surgerie; and is used of painters, picture makers, and other artificers.
The seeds stamped with the roots of wild Cucumbers, draweth forth splinters, thornes, broken bones, or any other thing fixed in any part of the body.