Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris. or A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp with a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes, & fruites, for meate or sause vsed with vs, and an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land together with the right orderinge planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues collected by Iohn Parkinson apothecary of London 1629.

8. Carduus Eriocephalus siue Tomentosus. The Friers Crowne.

This woolly Thistle hath many large and long leaues lying on the ground, cut in on both sides into many diuisions, which are likewise somewhat vnequally cut in or di∣uided againe, hauing sharpe white prickles at euery corner of the diuisions, of a dead or sad greene colour on the vpperside, and somewhat woolly withall, and grayish vn∣derneath: the stalke is strong and tall, foure or fiue foote high at the least, branching out into diuers parts, euery where beset with such like leaues as growe below; at the toppe of euery branch there breaketh out a great whitish round prickly head, flattish at the toppe, so thicke set with wooll, that the prickles seeme but small spots or haires,

and doth so well resemble the bald crowne of a Frier, not onely before it be in flower, but especially after it hath done flowring, that thereupon it deseruedly receiued the name of the Friers Crowne Thistle: out of these heads riseth forth a purple thrumme, such as is to be seene in many other wilde Thistles, which when they are ripe, are full of a flockie or woolly substance, which breake at the toppe shedding it, and the seede which is blackish, flat, and smooth: the roote is great and thicke, enduring for some yeares, yet sometimes perishing, if it be too much exposed to the violence of the frosts in Winter.

The Place.

The first groweth naturally in Spaine, Italy, and France, and in many o∣ther hot Countries, and growe onely in Gardens in these colder climates, and there cherished for the beautifull aspect both of the greene plants, and of the stalkes when they are in flower. The Carline Thistle is found both in Germany and Italy in many places, and as it is reported, in some places of the West parts in England. The others are found some in France, some in Hungary, and on the Alpes, and the last in Spaine.

The Time.

They doe all flower in the Summer moneths, some a little earlier or later then others.

The Names.

The first is called Acanthus sativus (because the other that is prickly, is called siluestris or spinosus) and Branea vrsina; In English, Branck vrfine, and Beares breech. The third is called Eringium montanum, Alpinum, and Pannonicum latifolium: In English, Mountaine or Hungary Sea Holly. The fourth is called Carduus mollis, The gentle Thistle, because it hath no harm∣full prickles, although it seeme at the first shew to be a Thistle. The fifth is called of diuers Chamaeleo albus, and Carlina, as if they were both but one plant; but Fabius Columna hath in my iudgement very learnedly descided that controuersie, making Carlina to be Ixine of Theophrastus, and Chamae∣leo another differing Thistle, which Gaza translateth Vernilago. We call it in English, The Carline Thistle. The other haue their names in their titles, as much as is conuenient for this discourse.

The Vertues.

The first hath alwaies been vsed Physically, as a mollifying herbe among others of the like slimie matter in Glisters, to open the body; yet Lob••l seemeth to make no difference in the vse of them both (that is, the prickly as well as the smooth.) The Carline Thistle is thought to bee good against poysons and infection. The rest are not vsed by any that I know.