The Description.

            1. The first of these plants hath long leaves, which are double-edged, or sharp on both sides, with a sharp crest in the middle, in such manner raised up that it seemeth to be triangle or three-square. The stalks grow among the leaves, and are two or three foot long, being divided into many branches, garnished with many prickly husks or knops of the bigness of a nut. The root is full of hairy strings.

            2. The Great Water-Bur differeth not in anything from the first kind in roots or leaves, save that the first hath his leaves rising immediately from the tuft or knop of the root; but this kind hath a long stalk coming from the root, whereupon, a little above the root, the leaves shoot out round about the stalk successively, some leaves still growing above others, even to the top of the stalk, and from the top thereof downward by certain distances. It is garnished with many round whorls, or rough coronets, having here and there among the said whorls one single short leaf of a pale green colour.

The Place.

            Both these are very common, and grow in moist meadows, and near unto water-courses. They plentifully grow in the fenny grounds of Lincolnshire, and such like places; in the ditches about St. George his fields and in the ditch right against the place of execution, at the end of Southwark, called St. Thomas Waterings.

The Time.

            They bring forth their burry bullets or seedy knots in August.

The Names.

            These plants of some are called Sparganium: Theophrastus in his fourth Book and eighteenth Chapter calleth them Butomus: of some, Platanaria: I call them Bur-Reed: in the Arabian tongue they are called Sa farhe Bamon: in Italian Sparganio: of Dodonæus, Carex: Some call the first Sparganium ramosum, or Branched Bur-Reed. The second, Sparganium non ramosum, Not-branching Bur-Reed.

The Temperature.

            They are cold and dry of complexion.

The Virtues.

            A. Some write, that the knops or rough burs of these plants boiled in wine, are good against the bitings of venomous beasts, if either it be drunk, or the wound washed therewith.