Blood-wort.
Lapathum sanguineum.
A BEAUTIFUL kind of dock kept in gardens, and wild in some places. It grows to four feet high; the stalks are firm, stiff, upright, branched, and striated. The leaves are very long and narrow, broadest at the base, and smaller all the way to the end. They are not at all indented at the edges, and they stand upon long footstalks: their colour is a deep green, but they are in different degrees stained with a beautiful blood red; sometimes the ribs only are red, some times there are long veins of red irregularly spread over the whole leaf; sometimes they are very broad, and in some plants the whole leaves and the stalks also are of a blood colour; the flowers are very numerous and little. They in all respects resemble those of the common wild docks. The root is long and thick, and of a deep blood red colour.
The roots are used: they are best dry, and they may be given in decoction, or in powder: They are a powerfully astringent: they stop bloody fluxes, spitting of blood, and the overflowings of the menses, it is also good against violent purgings and against the whites.
