Privet.
Description.
OUr common Privet is carried up with many slender Branches, to a reasonable height and breadth, to cover Arbours, Bowrs, and Banquetting Houses, and brought, wrought, and cut into many forms, of Men, Horses; Birds, &c. which though at first sup∣ported, groweth afterwards strong of it self: It beareth long and narrow green Leavs by couples, and sweet smelling white Flowers in tufts at the ends of the Branches, which turn into smal black Berries that have a Purplish Juyce within them, and some Seeds that are flat on the one side, with a hole or dent there∣in.
Place.
It groweth in this Land in divers Woods.
Time.
Our Privet Flowreth in June and July; The Berries are ripe in August and Septem∣ber.
Vertues and Use.
It is little used in Physick with us in these times, more than in Lotions to wash Sores, and Sore Mouths, and to cool Inflamations and dry up Fluxes.* 1.1 Yet Mathiolus saith it serveth to all the uses for which Ciprus or the East Privet is appointed by Dioscorides and Galen. He further saith, That the Oyl that is made of the Flowers of Privet infused ther∣in, and set in the Sun, is singular good for the Inflamations of Wounds, and for the Headach coming of an hot caus. There is a sweet wa∣ter also distilled from the Flowers that is good for all those Diseases that need cooling and drying, and therefore helpeth all Fluxes, of the Belly or Stomach. Bloody Fluxes, and Wo∣mens Courses, being either drunk or applied, as also for those that void Blood at their Mouth or at any other place, and for Distil∣lations of Rhewms into the Eyes especially if it be used with Tutiae.