Herb

“ One herb is heating, another is cooling, each after the degree of its nature and complexion. In the same manner many other created things on the earth and in the water preserve man’s life, through the Creator of Nature. ”

“ There is a small onion to give a taste—in the other is a good herb, called Lord have mercy on us. These, and many other holy herbs are contained in it, all boiling in the heart of man, will make as good pottage as the world can afford, especially if you use these herbs for digestion. The herb repentance, the herb grace, the herb faith, the herb love, the herb hope, the herb good works, the herb feeling, the herb zeal, the herb fervency, the herb ardency, the herb constancy, with many more of this nature, most excellent for digestion. ”

“ This is but an herb every year, dying with his stalks to the ground, and rising afresh every Spring, and is like unto the Elder both in form and quality, rising up with square, rough, hairy stalks, four feet high, or more sometimes. ”

“ For they are full of the old herb lore and of the uses of herbs in homely medicines. It must be remembered that even as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries every woman was supposed to have some knowledge of both the preparation and the medicinal use of herbs and simples. ”

“ Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree. ”

“ It is, however, fairly safe to say generally that a herb is a plant, green, and aromatic and fit to eat, but it is impossible to deny that there are several undoubted herbs that are not aromatic, a few more grey than green, and one or two unpalatable, if not unwholesome. ”

“ I considered further how that in everything which arises, grows, lives or soars in the four elements named, be it metal, stone, herb or animal, the four natures of the elements, heat, cold, moistness and dryness are mingled. It is also to be noted that the four natures in question are also mixed and blended in the human body in a measure and temperament suitable to the life and nature of man. ”

“ Herb, hėrb, n. a plant the stem of which dies every year, as distinguished from a tree or shrub which has a permanent stem.—adj. Herbā′ceous, pertaining to, or of the nature of, herbs: (bot.) having a soft stem that dies to the root annually.—n. Herbage (hėrb′āj, or ėrb′āj) , green food for cattle: pasture: herbs collectively.—adjs. Herb′aged, covered with grass; Herb′al, pertaining to herbs.—n. a book containing descriptions of plants with medicinal properties, orig. of all plants.—ns. Herb′alist, one who makes collections of herbs or plants: one skilled in plants ”

“ Should any one happen to see during their daily walks "a herb with a black root, and a red and violet stalk, whose leaves wax and wane with the moon," they will at once know that they have found a specimen of the rare herb "Lunary." ”

“ The principal parts of plants are the root; the herb or plant itself; and the fructification, or flower and fruit.
3. As it is the sole object of this introduction to describe, in a concise manner, the Linnæan arrangement of plants, for the purpose of explaining the classification adopted in the present volume, the parts of fructification only will be mentioned. These are the calyx, corolla, stamens, pistil, seed-vessel, seeds, and receptacle. ”

“ Five hundred Points of Good Husbandry.—Tusser.
The majority of herbs are not exacting in their requirements, but a few foreigners thrive the better for a little protection as a start. This is the opinion of a successful gardener on the Herb-Border in an ordinary kitchen-garden: “As to soil and situation, I used to devote a border entirely to Herbs, under a privet hedge, facing north-west, with a rough marly bottom. I had a plant [146] of most varieties I could get hold of, both Culinary and Medicinal.” ”

“ The juice of the leaves dropped into the ear, helps imposthumes therein. The distilled water of the whole herb, when the leaves and stalks are young, is profitable drank for all the purposes aforesaid; and helps the melancholy of the heart, and is available in quartan and quotidian agues; as also for them that have their necks drawn awry, and cannot turn them without turning their whole body.
EYEBRIGHT. ”

“ Any person desiring to bring a special herb to perfection is hardly likely to need reference to one of the many admirable gardening dictionaries, for it is not probable that he would look to an amateur for solid instruction on such points. To conclude, Leonard Meager [93] gives some pithy directions which it is well to bear in mind:—
“In setting herbs ever observe to leave the tops no more than a handful above the ground, and the roots a foot under the earth. ”

“ The herbalists seem to have attempted to keep their business select by fencing it about with all manner of superstitions, most of which have for their moral that herb-collecting is too dangerous an occupation for the uninitiated. Theophrastus draws attention to the absurdity of some of the root-diggers’ directions for gathering medicinal plants. ”

“ Fruit trees retain their own particular quality if permitted to grow undisturbed, but lose it promptly and bear strange fruit not their own when ingrafted. Every herb has its peculiar characteristics, its virtues and properties ”

“ But you may well understand it to be the smallest Seed among Herbs which produce so big a Plant, or the least of herbal Plants, which arise unto such a proportion, implied in the expression; the smallest of Seeds, and becometh the greatest of Herbs. ”

“ Oftentimes we see some herb which has flowered in the midst of a thorny shrub, when all the other individuals of the same species, in the open fields around, are eaten down, and cannot bring their seed to maturity. ”

“ A strip for a little herbary half-way between the flower and vegetable garden would form a very appropriate transition stratum and might be the means, by being more under the eye of the mistress, of recovering to our soups and salads some of the comparatively neglected herbs of tarragon, and French sorrel, and purslane, and chervil, and dill, and clary, and others whose place is now nowhere to be found but in the pages of the old herbalists. ”

“ All herbs and all things that grow above or in the earth have their origin in one of five ways, namely, either from seed, or from putrefaction, or from the moisture of water, or from being planted, or from growing as parasites on other plants. ”

“ Constance answered.
"At least not for your harm, little maid," said the doctor. "It hath been my experience that the gatherer of herbs gets a healing of spirit that is not set down in our books among the beneficial qualities of the plants, but which may, under conditions, be their best attribute. Although the singing of brooks and birds, the sweetness of the winds, the solemn nobility of the trees, the vastness of the sky, the over-brooding presence of God in His creation are compounded with the herbs, and impart their powers to us with that of the plants." ”

“ There are many trees; but some trees are bigger and some smaller, and the crops that they bear are very different; for each kind of tree has a flavour of its own. And there are herbs, and great differences between them—some profitable for health, others only for fragrance. ”

“ The very forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire a bright color, an evidence of its ripeness, as if the globe itself were a fruit on its stem, with ever a cheek toward the sun.
Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe ones. The edible part of most fruits is, as the physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy tissue of the leaf," of which they are formed. ”

“ The tenderest plant, the least of herbs and pulse are, in little, in a small seed, all that is displayed in the highest plants and largest tree. Earth that never changes produces all those alterations in her bosom. ”

“ To see a well cut herbal, hearbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetals, expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Besler of Noremberge; wherein almost every plant is to his own bignesse. ”

“ One is conscious of vast trackless wastes of heath and moor, of impenetrable forests and terror-infested bogs; but of the details of plant life there is scarcely a word. In these manuscripts alone do we find what plant life meant to our ancestors, and, as with all primitive nations, their belief in the mystery of herbs is almost past our civilised understanding. ”

“ Gather herbs when the sap is full in the top of them. Such herbs as you intend to gather for drying, to keep for use all the winter, do it about Lammas-tide; dry them in the shade that the sun draw not out their vertue, but in a clear air and breezy wind, that no mustiness may taint them.”
Cut all herbs just before they flower, except where the flower heads are wanted—lavender or camomile, for instance. ”

“ Another very early book based on classical writings, especially those of Dioscorides and Pliny, was the ‘Herbarium’ of Apuleius Platonicus. This little Latin work is among the earliest to which the term “Herbal” is generally applied. A herbal has been defined as a book containing the names and descriptions of herbs, or of plants in general, with their properties and virtues. ”

“ This is the principal month for grafting all sorts of fruit-trees, transplanting all sorts of hardy herbs and flovers, make up hot-beds for cucumbers, melons, colliflowers, to come late, to Russia cabbage and tender flower seeds, as amaranths of all sorts, and garden-seed, marvil, of Pern, &c. ”

“ Herbs are plants or vegetables with soft stalks or stems. Some grow wild, others we grow in our gardens.
2. We use some for eating, such as mustard and cress. Others, such as parsley, mint, sage, and thyme, we use to flavour our food. Many are used as medicine. ”

“ From his garden of pleasant flowers he leads us to the kitchen garden, full not only of “vegetables” as we understand the term, of strawberries, cucumbers and pompions, but also of a vast number of herbs in daily use, many of them never seen in modern gardens. ”

“ In the present chapter no attempt has been made to discuss the illustrations of those herbals (e.g. the works of Turner, Tabernæmontanus, Gerard, etc.) in which most of the wood-cuts are copied from previous books. ”

“ Herbs are plants which die to the ground in winter. They may be annual, biennial, or perennial. For a list of annual Herbs suitable for the flower garden, see the articles on Annuals and Bedding. A border or free mass of perennial Herbs is one of the charms of any place. It is informal, easy of care, and self-sustaining. The large part of the mass should be composed of common and hardy things—wild or from gardens—and incidental features may be made of the choicer and rarer exotics. In most cases, plants look better when judiciously mixed than when planted one kind in a bed. See Border. ”

“ Botanicum Anglicum, or The English Herball: Wherein is contained a curious Collection of Real Plants being the true Patterns of such Trees, Shrubs and Herbs as are observed to grow Wild in England. By which any one may most easily attain to the Speedy and True Knowledge of them. ”

“ Of divers floures, made full craftely.
More modern still is the delightful notion of a sun-dial made of herbs and flowers, that will mark the time of day by the opening and closing of their blossoms. Linnæus had such a dial, with each plant so placed that at each successive hour a flower should open or fold up. ”

“ Thyme, Sweet Marjoram, Savory, Hysop, Sage, Mint, Rosemary, the Leaves of the Bay-Tree, the Tops of Juniper, Gill, or Ground Ivy, and such like: The Infusions, or Spirits, drawn from dried Herbs are more free from the Earthy and Watery Parts, than the Infusions, or Spirits drawn from green Herbs. ”

“ For we see herbs and plants are nourished by earth and water; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits; man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water, and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these several bodies before they come to be his food and aliment. ”

“ There are some things in this little handbook worthy of remembrance, notably an imaginative passage in which the author tells us that “herbs that grow in the fields are better than those which grow in gardens, and of those herbs which grow in the fieldes, such as grow on hilles are best.” ”

“ Plants of a mixed colour, as they unite in themselves a diversity of temperaments, were thought to produce a diversity of effects; whence two-coloured herbs were believed to possess and exercise a double virtue. ”

“ Vegetables are plants which have a number of stems growing out of one root and a number of branches, rue, for example, and cabbage. Herbs are plants which have no stem, but their leaves grow out of their roots. Some plants are produced and dry up every year, wheat, for example, and vegetables. ”

“ Proceeding to the detailed classification of Herbs, he divides them into Imperfect "which either do want or seem to want some of the more essential parts of Plants, viz. either Root, Stalk, or Seed," the Cryptogamia of Linnaeus; and Perfect "having all the essential parts belonging to a Plant." The Perfect Herbs are arranged in three main groups according to (1) their leaves, (2) their flowers, (3) their seed-vessel, each group being subdivided in various ways. ”

“ The mass of observations relating to herbs and flowers, accumulated during a period of many centuries, largely for medicinal purposes, is to-day serving as the basis for far-reaching biological theories, which could never have arisen without such a foundation. ”