Pimpernel.
Anagallis flore rubro.
A pretty little plant common in corn fields and garden borders. The stalks are square, smooth, green, but not very upright: they are five or six inches long. The leaves stand two at each joint, and they are of an oblong figure, considerably broad in the middle, and pointed at the end. The flowers stand singly on long slender foot-stalks; they are small, but of a most bright scarlet colour.
The whole plant is used, and the best method of giving it, is in an infusion, made by pouring boiling water upon it fresh gathered: this is an excellent drink in fevers; it promotes. sweat, and throws out the small pox, measles, or any other eruptions: the dried leaves may be given in powder or a tea made of the whole dried plant, but nothing is so well as the infusion of it fresh, those who have not seen it tried this way do not know how valuable a medicine it is.
There is another kind of pimpernel, perfectly like this, but that the flowers are blue; this is called the female, and the other the male pimpernel, but the red flowered kind has most virtue.
