Burnet Saxifrage.

Botanical name: 

Plate 07. Pimpinella saxifrage.

A PRETTY plant, wild in our dry pastures, and under hedges, but not very common in all parts of the kingdom; it grows two feet high, and has the flowers in umbels. The stalk is firm, striated, and branched; the leaves rising from the root are pinnated, and the lesser leaves of which they are composed, are hard, of a deep green, narrow, and indented. The leaves upon the stalks are smaller and narrower; the flowers are little and white, but they stand in so large clusters, that they make a figure: the root is white, and of a hot burning taste; the seeds are striated.

The root is the only part used; it should be taken up in spring before the stalks shoot up, and dried; it is very good in colics, and disorders of the stomach, and it works by urine.


The Family Herbal, 1812, was written by John Hill.