Fennel Flower.

Botanical name: 

Nigella.

A singular and pretty plant kept in gardens. It grows a foot and a half high. The stalk is firm, round, striated, and upright and hollow. The leaves are divided into a multitude of fine slender parts like those of fennel, only very small in comparison, and thence it had the English name of fennel flower; they stand irregularly on the stalks and are of a pale green. The flowers stand at the tops of the branches: they are singular and pretty; the colour is whitish, and they are moderately large, the green leaves about them give them a very particular grace.

The juice of the plant fresh gathered, is good for the head-ache; it is to be snuffed up the nose, and it will occasion sneezing; inwardly taken it works by urine, and is good in the jaundice.


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