From the book
Culpeper's Complete Herbal
by Nicholas Culpeper
Asparagus, Sparagus, or Sperage
Descript.] It rises up at
first with divers white and green scaly heads, very brittle or easy to
break while they are young, which afterwards rise up in very long and
slender green stalks of the bigness of an ordinary riding wand, at the
bottom of most, or bigger, or lesser, as the roots are of growth; on
which are set divers branches of green leaves shorter and smaller than
fennel to the top; at the joints whereof come forth small yellowish
flowers, which turn into round berries, green at fist, and of an
excellent red colour when they are ripe, shewing like bead or coral,
wherein are contained exceeding hard black seeds, the roots are
dispersed from a spongeous head into many long, thick, and round
strings, wherein is sucked much nourishment out of the ground, and
increaseth plentifully thereby.
Prickly Asparagus, or Sperage.
Descript.]
This grows usually in gardens, and some of it grows wild in Appleton
meadows in Gloucestershire, where the poor people gather the buds of
young shoots, and sell them cheaper than our garden Asparagus is sold
in London.
Time.] For the most part they flower, and bear their berries late in the year, or not at all, although they are housed in Winter.
Government and virtues.]
They are both under the dominion if Jupiter. The young buds or branches
boiled in ordinary broth, make the belly soluble and open, and boiled
in white wine, provoke urine, being stopped, and is good against the
strangury or difficulty of making water; it expelleth the gravel and
stone out of the kidneys, and helpeth pains in the reins. And boiled in
white wine or vinegar, it is prevalent for them that have their
arteries loosened, or are troubled with the hip-gout or sciatica. The
decoction of the roots boiled in wine and taken, is good to clear the
sight, and being held in the mouth easeth the tooth-ache. The garden
asparagus nourisheth more than the wild, yet hath it the same effects
in all the afore-mentioned diseases:
The decoction of the
roots in white wine,and the back and belly bathed therewith, or
kneeling or lying down in the same, or sitting therein as a bath, has
been found effectual against pains and reins of the bladder, pains of
the mother and cholic, and generally against all pains that happen to
the lower parts of the body, and no less effectual against stiff and
benumbed sinews, or those that are shrunk by cramps and convulsions,
and helps the sciatica.
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