Cranesbill.
Geranium robertianum.
CRANESBILL is a little herb very frequent under hedges, and in uncultivated places: there are many kinds of it, but that which has most virtue, is the kind called herb robert; this is a pretty and regularly growing plant. The stalks are a foot long, but they seldom stand quite upright; they are round, branched, and jointed, and are often red, as is frequently the whole plant: the leaves are large, and divided into a great number of parts, and they stand upon long foot-stalks, two at every joint. The flowers are moderately large, and of a bright red, they are very conspicuous and pretty; the fruit that follows is long and slender, and has some resemblance of the long beak of a bird, whence the name.
The whole plant is to be gathered root and all, and dried for use; it is a most excellent astringent: Scarce any plant is equal to it. It may be given dried and powdered, or in decoction. It stops overflowings of the menses, bloody stools, and all other bleedings.
It is to be observed that nature seems to have set her stamp upon several herbs which have the virtue to stop bleedings. This and the tusan, the two best remedies the fields afford for outward and inward bleedings, become all over as red as blood at a certain season.
