Chap. 013. Of Garden Anemonies.

I. The Names. This Plant is called in Arabick, Jackick, Alnahamen, Sakaick, Mamira: in Greek, Ανεμώνη, από το ανέμο, quasi herba Venti: in Latin also, Anemone, & Herba Venti: and in English, Anemonie and Wind-Flower.

II. The Kinds. Some Authors will have them of the Stock of Crowfoot, by reason of the shape of the Leaf. But to me it seems to be a peculiar Plant of it self: and is divided into three principal Kinds, viz. The Garden, the Wild, and the Bastard. The Garden Kinds are almost innumerable, at leastwise not easie to be reckoned up; and for my part I believe, it would puzle the most experienced Florist, to give a just enumeration of them, and therefore I shall not here attempt it, but give you the Description of these few following.
1. The single Anemone, which is purple, red, blood-Colored, blew, yellow, white. (Anemone coronaria for the blue-purple-red ones; Anemone ranunculoides for the yellow one. -Henriette)
2. The Double Anemone, which is red or scarlet, purple, Crimson, blewish, orange, tawny, white, &c. (An anemone, but I don't know the species. The yellow is possibly a sport of Anemone ranunculoides. -Henriette)

to which we add the following Wild Anemonies, viz.
3. The great Wild or Wood single Anemone white.
4. The smaller Wild or Wood single Anemone, purple, yellow, white.
5. The Wild double Anemone, purple, red and white.

These last three we Treat of in the next Chapter. The third Kind are the Bastard Anemonies, which tho’ they may be accounted as one of the Kinds of the same Tribe; yet by reason the English Name, which is Ρasque-Flower, falls not in the present Letter of the Alphabet, we shall refer you to its proper Place and Letter, which will be in Chap. 572. following.

III. The Description. 1. The single Garden Anemonie. It has a Root which is thick and Tuberous, or knobby; from whence rises up many Leaves, much cut in or jagged, almost like unto Adonis Flower, or not much unlike to the more jagged or finely cut Crowfoot, among which rises up a Stalk or Stalks bare or naked almost up to the Top, at which place it is set with two or three Leaves: at the top of the Stalk comes forth a fair Flower consisting, some of them, of six, some of seven, and some of Eight Leaves, of a Delicate Color, some purple, some red, some Crimson, some blew, some yellow, and some white Colored, &c impossible to be described, to their full perfection; with Thrums or Threads in the middle, of a blackish purple Color, and sometimes various Colored, according to the Color of the Flower. But here is to be noted that the yellow Anemone differs much from all the rest of the single various Colored Anemonies, for its Leaf is much like to a Common Mallow Leaf finely dented about the edges, green on the top, and something reddish underneath, its Flower is yellow, and the Head or Thrumb in the middle is yellow also. In all these Colored single Anemonies, when the Flowers are blown away, there remains a Head, whereon grows the Seed, which is small and black, or blackish, inclosed in a kind of soft Wooll or Down.

IV. The Double Garden Anemone. The Root is thick and Tuberous much like to the Root of the former: and indeed the Roots, Leaves and Stalks much resemble the former single Anemones, but the Leaf is not altogether so finely cut and Divided, as the red or Purple-flowerd single are: at the top of the Stalk there stands a fair Flower either red or scarlet, crimson, purple, blewish, orange, tawney, yellow or white, or mixt with some of these; Consisting of divers broader Leaves, with several rows of narrower Leaves one within another, which together make a very fair and beautiful Flower, the middle Head being thick closed either of a greenish, or whitish Color, or with red Colored Thrumbs tipt with blew, or various according to the Colors of the Flower. After the Flowers, there follows the Heads which contain the Seeds as the former. Here note, that the double yellow Anemone has such, broad roundish Leaves as the single Kind, but somewhat larger or ranker, and the Stalks are beset with larger Leaves, more deeply cut in on the edges, and the Flowers are of a more pale yellow, with some purplish Veins on the out side; and there is besides these, so great a variety of mixt Colors, in this Kind of Anemone, with broad Leaves arising every year from the sowing of the Seed of some of the Choicest, that it is wonderful to observe, not only the variety of single Colors, but the mixture of two or three Colors in one Flower, besides the diversity of the bottoms of the Flowers, and of the Thrumbs or Threads in the Middle. But in all these various Colored double Anemones, the greatest wonder of beauty is in the variety of double Flowers, that arise from the other single ones, some having two or three rows of Leaves in the Flowers, and some so thick of Leaves as a double Marigold, or double Crowfoot, and of the same several Colors that are in the single Flowers, that it is almost impossible to express them severally; some falling out to be more double in one year which are less double in another year, yet very many abiding constantly double as at first. This we though good to advertise in General, that it may be applied to each variety, and every Kind of Flower of each variety in particular, to save the farther trouble of endless Descriptions, and a needless multiplication of Words to no purpose.

V. The Places. These were most of them brought to us from Constantinople, some from Italy, and some from Germany; but now they are Inhabitants, and Natives of our own Country, and may be found almost every where in Gardens, especially in Physick-Gardens, and the Gardens of industrious Florists.

VI. The Times. They Flower from the begining of January to the end of April; and when they begin to fade, the Seed (where there is any) is carried away with the Wind. But if they bear Seed, it must be carefully gathered, but yet not before it is throughly ripe, which you may know by the Head, for when the Seed with the Wooliness begins to rise a little of it self, at the Lower end, it must then be presently gathered, and laid to dry for a Week or more, which then being gently rubbed with a little dry Sand or Earth, will cause the Seed to be somewhat better separated, tho' not perfectly from its Down or Woolliness, that encompasses it: within a Month at the most after the seed is thus gathered and prepared, it is to be Sown, for so you will get a Year in its growth, more than you would do, if you sowed it in the next Spring: if there is any Woolliness in the Seed, they are to be separated from it as well as may be, and then sown pretty thin, not too thick, upon a plain smooth bed of fine Earth, or rather in Pots or Tubbs; after the Sowing, sift or gently strew over them some fine, good, fresh Mould, about an inch deep at most for the first time: about a month after their first springing up, strew or sift over them in like manner, another inch thickness of fine Earth, and in the mean Season, if the Weather proves dry, you must water them gently and often, but not to over-glut them with moisture: thus doing, they will spring up before Winter, and grow so strong, as to be able to abide a sharp Winter, tho’ in their Infancy; but you ought to take some care in covering them loosely with Straw, Fern-leaves, or such-like, to keep them from the extremity of cold, which yet must not lye close upon them, nor too far off neither. The next Spring after Sowing, you may, if you so please, remove them; but in my Opinion it will be better to stay till the next August, when you may remove and set them in order by rows, with a sufficient distance one from another, where you may keep them till you see what kind of Flower each Plant will bear, which you may afterwards dispose according to your mind: many of these Plants thus ordered (if your Mould is fine, loose, fresh and black Earth, not Stony, Clayish, &c.) will bear Flowers the second year after Sowing, and most or all of them the third year, if the place you put them in is in a clear Air, free from the Smoak of Chimnies, Fornaces, Brewers or Dyers Fats, Mault Kilns, &c. in which they will never thrive. The ordinary time to Plant Anemones in is August, and then they will be in flower sometimes before Winter, but most commonly in February, March and April, few of them abiding until May; but if you keep some Roots out of the Ground unplanted, untill February, March and April, and Plant some at one time and some at another, you shall have them bear Flowers, according to their Planting: those which you Plant in February will flower about the middle or end of May, and so the rest accordingly, as to the time you Plant them in; and thus you may have the pleasure and variety of these Plants, out of their natural Seasons, which is scarcely to be had in any other Herb; Nature not being so apt to be provoked or forced in other things, as she is in this. But in keeping your Anemone Roots out of the Ground for this purpose, you are to keep them neither too dry nor too moist, that they may neither wither, sprout nor rot; and in Planting them, you must not set them in too open and funny a place, but where they may have something of shaddow.

VII. The Qualities. They are hot and dry in the third degree. They Attenuate, Incide, and vehemently Attract; and by Appropriation are Cephalick, Uterine and Arthritick: and are only Alteratives in respect to Heat or Cold.

VIII. The Specification. It is peculiar against Apoplexies, Epilepsies, Lethargies, Madness, Vertigo’s proceeding from a cold and moist Humor, or Distemper of the Head and Brain.

IX. The Preparations. The Shops keep nothing of this Plant in Store, but you may have,
1. The Roots, Stalks and Leaves.
2. The Juice.
3. The Essence.
4. The Decoction.
5. A Masticatory.
6. A Gargarism.
7. A Pessary.
8. An Ointment.
9. A Cataplasm.
10. A Saline Tincture.
11. An Oily Tincture.

The Virtues.

X. The Roots, Stalks and Leaves. These boiled in Water, chiefly the Roots, or Roots and Leaves, till such time as their fiery and biting Taste is mostly gone, and being Eaten as a Salet, with a little Butter, Salt and Vinegar, are said to encrease Milk in Nurses.

XI. The Juice. Being snuffed up the Nose morning and evening, but chiefly at Bed time, it mightily Purges the Head and Brain, and brings away abundance of cold, moist, flegmatick Humors, and thereby frees the Patient from Apoplexies, Epilepsies, Lethargies, and most other cold Distempers of the Head, Brain and Nerves, caused by those Humors lodged in the Head, in the Cavities of the Brain, or between the Meninges thereof, viz. between the Pia and Dura Mater.

XII. The Essence. It has the same Virtues, being used as an Errhine, but is chiefly given inwardly to provoke the Terms, bring away the Birth, Afterbirth, or Dead Child. Injected into running Sores, old Ulcers and Fistula’s, it admirably cleanses them, and disposes them to healing. Dose from half an ounce to i. ounce, in any proper Vehicle.

XIII. The Decoction. If it is made of the Leaves with half Water half Wine, it powerfully provokes the Terms, and brings away the Dead Child; and the Body or Places affected being bathed therewith, it Cures Sun-burnings, Tanning, Scurff, Morphew, Leprosie, Scabs, &c. Dose iv. ounces twice a day.

XIV. The Masticatory. The Root chewed in the Mouth, draws out a Flux of cold Rheum, by which the Tooth-ach, Head-ach, Megrim, Apoplexies, Epilepsies, Carus, Lethargies, and other sleepy Diseases proceeding from a cold and moist cause, are Cured.

XV. The Gargarism. It is made of equal parts of the Juice and Decoction mixt together, in which, to every iv. ounces of the Mixture, ii. drams of Nitre are added and dissolved. It has all the Virtues of the Juice and Masticatory, and purges and cleanses the Head and Brain so admirably as to Cure all those Diseases afore-named of those parts; and where they are not present, but are only feared from a coldness of the Head and Parts adjacent, a Sleepiness, and a being stuffed with cold flegmatick Humors; the use hereof now and then prevents their coming, and secures the Patient for the future.

XVI. The Pessary. It is made either of the Root cut into form, or of the Juice made up with melted Wax and Barley Flower; put up into the Womb or Vagina, it opens the Veins of the Womb, and by its attractive force, provokes and draws down the Terms: but it ought to be several times renewed, taking proper things also by the Mouth.

XVII. The Ointment. It is made of the green Herb or Juice. The Eye-lids being anointed therewith, it helps Ophthalmies or Inflamations of the Eyes; and applyed to running Sores, old Ulcers, putrid Fistula’s, and other malign and corroding Defilements, it perfectly cleanses them, strengthens the Part Affected, and promotes their healing.

XVIII. The Cataplasm. It is made of the green Herb beaten with Hogs Lard, in which a little Alum and Nitre, in fine Pouder, are mixt and dissolved: applyed, it eases Pain in any Part, and Cures Scurff, Morphew and Leprosie, being used for some considerable time.

XIX. The Saline Tincture. The External Parts of the Body being washed with it, it removes all sorts of Defilements, cleansing the Part, and killing the Humor, by destroying the Ferment which breeds it. Mixt with double quantity of Juice, it becomes an excellent Gargarism or Liquid Errhine, purging the Head and Brain of all cold Humors. Let Physicians talk what they please, all the Cephalick or Head-purging Pills in the World cannot purge the Head and Brain like to powerful Errhines, Gargarisms or Masticatories.

XX. The Oily Tincture. This is indeed truly beneficial for all such as are troubled with Oedema’s, cold Tumors, Pains and Aches in any part of the Body from a cold Cause, as also for such as are afflicted with Spasms, Cramps, Convulsions, weakness of the Nerves, Tremblings, Numedness, Palsies, and the like, being anointed effectually twice a day upon the place affected, (and in Palsies, along the Back Bone also;) and continuing the Use thereof, for some considerable time.

Botanologia, or The English Herbal, was written by William Salmon, M.D., in 1710.
This chapter has been proofread by Lisa Haller.