Blagrave's supplement or enlargement to Mr. Nich. Culpeppers English physitian containing a description of the form, names, place, time, coelestial government, and virtues, all such medicinal plants as grow in England, and are omitted in his book, called, The English-physitian, and supplying the additional virtues of such plants wherein he is defective : also the description, kinds, names, place, time, nature, planetary regiment, temperature, and physical virtues of all such trees, herbs, roots, flowers, fruits, excrescencies of plants, gums, ceres, and condensate juices, as are found in any part of the world, and brought to be sold in our druggist and apothecaries shops, with their dangers and corrections / by Joseph Blagrave ... ; to which is annexed, a new tract for the cure of wounds made by gun-shot or otherways, and remedies for the help of seamen troubled with the scurvy and other distempers ...

Quick-Grass

Kinds and Names.] THere are several sorts of these Grasses, some growing in the fields and other pla∣ces of the upland grounds, and others near the Sea; it is also called Dogs-grass, and Gramen Caninum: the other several names shall fol∣low in the Descriptions.

Descript.] 1. Common quick-grass, Gramen caninum vulgare. This grass creepeth far about under ground, with long white joynted roots, and small fibres almost at every joynt, very sweet in taste, as the rest of the herb is, and interlaceing one another; from whence shoot forth many fair and long grassie leaves, small at the ends, and cutting or sharp at the edges; the stalks are joynted like Corn, with the like leaves on them and a long spiked head, with long husks on them, and hard rough seed in them.

Descript.] 2. Quick grass with a more spread Panickle, Gramen ca∣ninum longius, radicatum, & paniculatum. This differeth very little from the former, but in the tuft or panickle, which is more spread into branches, with shorter and broader husks; and in the root which is fuller, greater, and further-spread.

Descript.] 3. The lesser quick-grass with a sparsed tuft, Gramen ca∣ninum, latiore panicula, minus. This small quick-grass hath slender stalks about half a foot high, with many very narrow leaves, both below and on the stalks: the tuft or panickle at the top is small according to the Plant, and spreadeth into sundry parts or branches: the root is small and joynted but creepeth not so much, and have many more fibres among them than the others have, and is a little browner, not so white, but more sweet.

Descript.] 4. Low bending quick grass, Gramen caninum, arvense; This creepeth much under ground but in a differing manner, the stalks ta∣king

root in divers places, and scarce rising a foot high; with such like green leaves as the ordinary, but shorter; the spiked head is bright, and sparsed or spread abroad somewhat like the field grass.

Descript.] 5. Gramen caninum supinum Monspeliense. This diffe∣reth very little from the last, in any other part thereof than in the panickle or spiked head; which is longer and not spread, or branched into parts as that is.

Descript.] 6. A small sweet grass like Quick-grass, Gramen exile te∣nuifolium, Canariae simile, sive gramen dulce. This small grass hath di∣vers low creeping Branches and rooting at the joynts as the two last; ha∣ving many small and narrow leaves on them much less than they; and a small sparsed panickle, somewhat like the red dwarf-grass.

Descript.] 7. Wall-grass with a creeping root, Gramen murorum ra∣dice repente: this Wall grass from a blackish creeping root springeth forth with many stalks a foot high, bending or crooking with a few narrow short leaves on them, at whose tops stand small white panickles, of an inch and a half long, made of many small chaffy husks.

Place and Time.] The first is usual and common in divers plow'd Grounds and Gardens, where it is often more bold than welcome, troubling the Husbandmen as much after the plowing up of some of them (as to pull up the rest, after the springing, and being raked toge∣ther to burn them) as it doth Gardners, where it happeneth, to weed it out from amongst their trees and Herbs: the second and third are more scarce, and delight in Sandy and Chalky grounds; the three next are likewise found in Fields that have been plowed and do lye Fallow; and the last is often found on old decayed Walls in divers places; they flourish chiefly in the beginning of Summer.

Government and Virtues.] These are Plants of Mercury. The root is of temperature cold and dry, and hath a little mordacity in it, and some tenuity of parts: the herb is cold in the first degree, and mode∣rate in moisture and dryness; but the seed is much more cold and drying; of some tenuity of parts, and somewhat harsh. This quick grass is most medicinable of all other sorts of grasses: it is effectual to open obstructions of the Liver and Spleen, and the stoppings of Urine, the decoction thereof being drunk, and to ease the griping pains in the belly, and Inflamations, and wasteth the excrementitious matter of the Stone in the Bladder; and the Ulcers thereof, also the root being bruised and applyed doth knit together and consolidate wounds: the seed doth more powerfully expell Urine, bindeth the bel∣ly, and stayeth vomiting, the distilled water is good to be given to Children for the worms.

Sea-spiked Quick Grass.

Kinds and Names.] THere are several sorts hereof: whose names shall severally follow before their Descrip∣tions.

Descript.] 1. Sea-spiked quick grass, or dogs grass, Gramen cani∣num geniculatum maritimum spicatum; this Sea grass hath divers joynted stalks about a foot high, with hard leaves thereon, long and like the other quick grass, the spiked heads are much shorter and harder than the common kind; the root is full of joynts, and creepeth under ground like it.

Descript.] 2. Sea quick grass Gramen caninum, vulgare, Canariae simile. This other grass is a slenderer lanker and harder grass than the ordinary quick grass, and of a blewish green colour, and differeth not in any thing else; but there are two other differing sorts hereof: the one in the roots which at the several joynts as it runneth doth shoot up the like stalks of leaves and spiked tufts, and will be sometimes twenty foot in length, with many of these tufts of stalks and leaves at them; the other in the spikes, which will have two rowes or orders in them.

Descript.] 3. Sea quick grass with long roots, Gramen caninum al∣terum maritimum longius radicatum; this long rooted Sea grass diffe∣reth little from the former, either in the hard leaves or in the running roots, but that they spread more; and instead of spiked heads at the tops of the stalks this hath chaffie heads among the leaves.

Descript.] 4. Sea-spiked quick grass of Mompelier, Gramen caninum maritimum spicatum Monspeliense; this French Sea-grass hath slender woody roots, with few fibres thereat, from whence rise divers trayling stalks a foot or more high, with sundry joynts and branches at them, and short narrow reed-like leaves, at the tops whereof grow spiked heads of three in∣ches long apiece, of a darkish Ash-colour.

Place and Time.] The three first are found on our Sea-coasts espe∣cially in Kent, and the fourth about Mompelier and Narbone; near the Sea Coasts: they are in flower and seed towards the end of Summer.

Government and Vertues.] These are under the same Planetary re∣giment as the ordinary Quick grass of the Land, and the roots here∣of are held as effectual to all the effects and purposes that the ordina∣ry sort serveth for; only this hath been observed, that Cattel will not feed on these of the Sea, because of their hardness roughness and sharpness.

Notes

• Liver, Spleen, Ʋrine, Griping in the Guts, In∣flamations, Stone, Wounds, Lask, Vomi∣ting, Worms.