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 Kidney Beane / or garden Smilax. Chap. xix.

❀ The Description.

GArden Smilax hath long and small branches, growing very high, gri∣ping, and taking holdfast when they be succoured with rises or long poles, about the whiche, they wrappe and winde them selues, as the Hoppe, otherwise they lye flat and creepe on the ground, & beare no fruite at all. The leaues be broade almost like Iuie, growing three and three togither as the Trefoil or three leaued grasse. The flowers be somtimes white and sometimes red, after the flowers there come in their places long coddes,

which be somtimes crooked, and in them lye the sedes or fruit, smaller then the common beane, and flat fashioned lyke to a kidney of colour somtimes red, som∣times, yellow, somtimes white, somtimes blacke, & sometimes gray, & speckled with sundrie colours. This fruit is good and pleasant to eate, in so much that men gather and boyle thē before they be ripe, and do eate them coddes and all.

❀ The Place.

In this Countrie men plant this kind of Beanes in gardens, & they loue good grounde and places that stande well in the Sonne.

❀ The Tyme.

They are planted in Aprill after that the colde and frostes be past: for at their first comming vp, they can by no meanes at all indure colde. They are ripe in Au∣gust and September.

¶ The Names.

This kinde of Beanes are called in Greeke 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉: in Latine Faseolus, Dolichus, and Smilax hortensis. The coddes or fruite are called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is in Latine Siliquae, and Lobi: of Serapio Lubia: in Frenche Phaseoles. in high Douch Welsch Bonen: in base Al∣maigne Roomsche Boonen: in Englishe of Turner it is called Kidney beane, and Sperage, of some they are called Faselles, or Long Peason, it may be also named Garden Smilax, or Romaine Beanes.

[illustration]

Phaseolus.

❀ The Nature.

Kidney beanes are somewhat hoate and moyst of Complexion, after the opinion of the Arabian Physitions.

❀ The Vertues.

[ A] Kidneybeanes do nourishe meetely well, and without engendring win∣dinesse, as some other pulses do: also they do gently loose and open the belly, as Hipocrates and Diocles do write.

[ B] The fruite and Coddes boyled and eaten before they be ripe, do prouoke vrine, and cause dreames, as Dioscorides sayth.