¶ The Description.
1 HEdge-hog Grasse hath long stiffe flaggy leaues with di∣uers stalkes proceeding from a thicke spreading root; and at the top of euery stalke growe certaine round and pric∣king knobs fashioned like an hedge-hog.
† 1.1 2 The second is rough and hairie: his roots do spred and creep vnder the mud and myre as Cyperus doth; and at the top of the stalkes are certaine round soft heads, their colour being browne, intermixed with yellow, so that they looke prettily when as they are in their prime.
‡ 3 This Grasse (whose figure was formerly in the first place in this Chapter) hath a small and fibrous root, from which rise leaues like those of Wheat, but with some long white hairs vpon them like those of the last described: at the tops of the stalks (which are some foot or better high) there grow two or three round heads consisting of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 and white downie threds. These heads are said to shine in the night, and therefore they in Italy call it (according to Caesalpi∣nus) 〈◊〉〈◊〉, quia noctu lucet.
4 To this I may adde another growing also in Italy, and first described by Fabius Columna. It hath small creeping ioynted roots, out of which come small fibres, and leaues little and very narrow at the first, but those that are vpon the stalkes are as long againe, incompassing the stalks, as in Wheat, Dogs-grasse, and the like. These leaues are 〈◊〉〈◊〉 all along, and a little forked at the end: the straw or stalke is very slender, at the top whereof growes a sharpe prickly round head, much after the manner of the last described: each of the seed-vessels whereof this head consists ends in a prickly stalke hauing fiue or seuen points, whereof the vppermost that is in the middle is the longest. The seed that is con∣tained in these prickly vessels is little and transparent, like in colour to that of Cow-wheat. The floures (as in others of this kinde) hang trembling vpon yellowish small threds. ‡