FLUX-WEED

Description:

Sisymbrium Sophia. There are two kinds; one has broader leaves than the other; the smell is disagree­able. It rises up with a round, hard, erect stalk, four or five feet high, spread into many branches, whereon grow many grey­ish green leaves, finely cut and severed into a number of short and almost round parts. The flowers are very small and yellow, growing spike fashion, after which come long pods, with small yellowish seed in them. They grow wild in fields, by hedge-sides and highways, among rubbish and in other places. They flower and seed quickly in June and July.

Herbal Remedies and Medicinal Uses of Flux (Weed):

The herb and seed of Flux-weed are excellent to stay the flux and diarrhoea. Put the seed and plant into water in which heated steel or iron has been repeat­edly quenched. It is effectual to restrain any other flux of blood in man or woman. The juice drank in wine, or a decoction of the herb, kills worms, made into a salve, it quickly heals all old sores, however foul and malignant they may be. The distilled water has the same effects, yet rather weaker. It is called Flux-weed because it cures the flux, and because it unites broken bones, etcetera. Paracelsus highly extols it.