Rosa Solis, or Sundew.

Botanical name: 

Plate 40. Ros solis.

A very singular and very pretty little plant, common in boggy places on our heaths. It grows six or seven inches high. The leaves all rise immediately from the root: they are roundish and hollow, of the breadth of a silver twopence, and placed on foot-stalks of an inch long; they are covered in a very extraordinary manner with long red hairs, and in the midst of the hottest days they have a drop of clear liquour standing on them. The stalks are slender and naked: at their tops stand little white flowers, which are succeeded by seed-vessels, of an oblong form, containing a multitude of small seeds. The root is fibrous.

The whole plant is used fresh gathered. It is esteemed a great cordial and good against convulsions; hysteric disorders, and tremblings of the limbs; but it is not much regarded.


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