Description. It hath many long and green stalks of large winged leaves, divided into many parts, like smallage, but much larger and greater, every leaf being cut about the edges, broadest forward, and smallest at the stalk, of a sad green colour, smooth and shining; from among which rise up sundry strong, hollow green stalks, five or six, sometimes seven or eight feet high, full of joints, but lesser leaves set on them than grow below; and with them towards the tops come forth large branches bearing at the tops large umbels of yellow flowers, and after them flat brownish seed. The root groweth thick, great and deep, spreading much, and enduring long, of a brownish colour on the outside, and whitish within, The whole plant and every part of it smelling strong and aromatically, and is of a hot, sharp biting taste.
Place. It is usually planted in gardens, where, if it be suffered, it groweth huge and great.
Time. It flowereth in the end of July, and seedeth in August.
Government and virtues. It is an herb of the Sun, under the sign Taurus. If Saturn offend the throat, (as he always doth if he occasion the malady, and in Taurus is the Genesis) this is your cure. It openeth, cureth, and digesteth humours, and mightily provoketh women's courses and urine. Half a drachm at a time of the dried root in powder, taken in wine, doth wonderfully warm a cold stomach, helpeth digestion, and consumeth all raw and superfluous moisture therein; easeth all inward gripings and pains, dissolveth wind and resisteth poison and infection. It is a known and much-praised remedy to drink the decoction of the herb for any sort of ague, and to help the pains and torments of the body and bowels coming of cold. The seed is effectual to all the purposes aforesaid, (except the last) and worketh more powerfully. The distilled water of the herb helpeth the quinsey in the throat, if the mouth and throat be gargled and washed therewith, and helpeth the pleurisy, being drank three or four times. Being dropped into the eyes, it is taketh away the redness or dimness of them: it likewise taketh away spots or freckles in the face. The leaves bruised, and fried with a little hog's lard, and laid hot to any blotch or boil, will quickly break it.