A nievve herball, or historie of plantes wherin is contayned the vvhole discourse and perfect description of all sortes of herbes and plantes: their diuers [and] sundry kindes: their straunge figures, fashions, and shapes: their names, natures, operations, and vertues: and that not onely of those whiche are here growyng in this our countrie of Englande, but of all others also of forrayne realmes, commonly vsed in physicke. First set foorth in the Doutche or Almaigne tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, physition to the Emperour: and nowe first translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte Esquyer.

Of Sage. Chap. lxxvij.

❀ The Kyndes.

THere be two sortes of Sage, the one is small & franke, & the other is great. The great Sage is of three sortes, that is to say, greene, white, and redde.

❀ The Description.

[ 1] THE franke Sage hath sundry wooddie branches, and leaues growing vpon long stemmes whiche leaues be long, narrow, vneuen, hoare, or of a grayishe white colour, by the sides of the sayde leaues at the lower ende, there groweth two other small leaues, like vnto a payre of little eares. The floures growe alongst the stalkes in proportion like the floures of Dead Nettell, but smaller and of colour blewe. The seede is blackishe, and the roote wooddie.

[ 2] The great Sage is not much vnlike the small or franke Sage, sauing it is larger: the stalkes are square and browne. The leaues be rough, vn∣euen

and whitishe, like to the leaues of franke Sage, but a greate deale larger, rougher, and without eares. The floures, seede, and roote are like vnto the other.

[illustration]

Saluia minor. Franke Sage, or small Sage.

[illustration]

Saluia maior. Great Sage, or broade Sage.

There is found an other kind of this great Sage, the which beareth leaues as white as snow, sometimes all white, and sometimes partie white, and this kinde is called white Sage.

Yet there is founde a thirde kinde of great Sage, called redde Sage, the stemmes whereof, with the synewes of the leaues, and the small late sprong vp leaues, are all redde: but in all things else it is like to the great Sage.

❀ The Place.

Sage, as Dioscorides saith, groweth in rough stonie places, both kindes of Sage, are planted almost in all the gardens of this countrie.

❧ The Tyme.

Sage floureth in Iune and Iuly.

❀ The Names.

The Sage is called in Greeke 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉: in Latine and in Shoppes Sal∣uia: of some Corsaluium: in Spanish Salua: in English Sage: in French Sange: in high Douch Salbey: in base Almaigne Sauie.

[ 1] The first kinde is now called in Latine Saluia minor, Saluia nobilis, and of some Saluia vsualis: in English Smal Sage, Sage royall, and common Sage: in French Sauge franche: in high Douch Spitz Salbey, klein Salbey, edel Sal∣bey, & Creutz Salbey: in base Almaigne Cruys sauie, and Dorkens sauie.

[ 2] The second kinde is called in Latine Saluia maior, and of some Saluia agre∣stis: in English great Sage, or broade Sage: in French grande Sauge: in high Douch Grosz salbey, Breat salbey: in base Almaigne groue, & groote Sauie.

❀ The Nature.

Sage is hoate and dry in the thirde degree and somewhat astringent.

❀ The Vertues.

[ A] Sage boyled in wine & dronken, prouoketh vrine, breaketh the stone, com∣forteth the harte, and swageth head ache.

[ B] It is good for wemē with childe to eate of this herbe, for as Aëtius saith it closeth the Matrice, causeth the fruite to liue, and strengtheneth the same.

[ C] Sage causeth wemen to be fertill, wherefore in times past the people of E∣gypt, after a great mortalitie and pestilence, constreyned their wemen to drinke the iuyce thereof, to cause them the sooner to conceyue and to bring foorth store of children.

[ D] The iuyce of Sage dronken with hony in the quantitie of two glasse fulles, as saith Orpheus, is very good for those whiche spitte and vomit bloud, for it stoppeth the fluxe of bloud incontinent. Likewise Sage brused and layde too, stoppeth the bloud of woundes.

[ E] The decoction thereof boyled in water and dronken cureth the cough, ope∣neth the stoppings of the Liuer, and swageth the payne in the side: and boyled with wormewood it stoppeth the blouddy flixe.

[ F] Sage is good to be layde to the woundes and bitings of venimous beasts, for it doth both clense, and heale them.

[ G] The wine wherein Sage hath boyled, helpeth the manginesse and itche of the priuie members, if they be wasshed in the same.