PEONY

Description:

Paeonia Carolina. The plant is distinguished by Male and Female.Male Peony rises up with brownish stalks, whereon growgreen and reddish leaves, upon a stalk without any particular division in the leaf. The flowers stand at the top of the stalks, consisting of five or six broad leaves, of a purplish red colour, with many yellow threads in the middle standing about the head, which become seed vessels, divided into three, or four crooked pods like horns, which contain round, black, shining seeds, with crimson grains, intermixed with black. The plant is beautiful. The roots are thick and long.

The ordinary Female Peony has many stalks, and more leaves than the male; the leaves are not so large, but of a dead green, smaller, and of a more purple colour than the Male, with yellow thrums at the head. The seed vessels are like those of the Male. They are cultivated in gardens.

Herbal Remedies and Medicinal Uses of Peony:

Male Peony roots are the best; the roots have more virtue than the seed; next the flowers, and then the leaves. The roots fresh gathered, cure the falling sickness. The roots powdered is excellent for hysterical and nervous complaints. The root chopped small and infused in white wine 24 hours, and strained, is excellent for nervous complaints, taking a wine-glassful occasionally. A decoction of Betony should be drank between. A decoction of the root is very cleansing immediately after child-birth, and so is the black seed infused in wine; it also drives away melancholy and night­mare. The Female is often used for the purposes aforesaid, because the Male is scarce.