¶ The Description.
THe stalkes of Sope-wort are slipperie, slender, round, ioynted, a cubit high or higher: the leaues are broad, set with veines very like broad leaued Plantaine, but yet lesser, standing out of euery ioynt by couples for the most part, and especially those that are the neerest the roots bowing backwards. The floures in the top of the stalkes and about the vppermost ioynts are many, well smelling, sometimes of a beautifull red colour like a Rose; other-while of a light pur∣ple or white, which grow out of long cups consisting of fiue leaues, in the middle of which are cer∣taine little threds. The roots are thicke, long, creeping aslope, hauing certaine strings hanging out of them like to the roots of blacke Hellebor: and if they haue once taken good and sure roo∣ting in any ground it is impossible to destroy them.
‡ There is kept in some of our gardens a varietie of this, which differs from it in that the floures are double and somewhat larger: in other respects it is altogether like the precedent. ‡