Costmary.
Botanical name:
Costus hortorum.
A GARDEN plant kept more for its virtues than its beauty, but at present neglected. It grows a foot and half high, and has clusters of naked yellow flowers like tansy. The stalks are firm, thick, green, and upright; the leaves are oblong, narrow, of a pale green, and beautifully serrated; the flowers consist only of deep yellow threads.
It was once greatly esteemed for strengthening the stomach, and curing head-achs, and for opening obstructions of the liver and spleen, but more seems to have been said of it than it deserved.
