CHAPTER VII - Of a Snake-weed

Summary

This is a small snake-weed and is found very rarely in Spitzbergen; the undermost leaves of this plant are the biggest, but they are not above the breadth of ones nail; they grow singly on the stalk, yet not above three of them, except the lowermost: the nearer the flower, the smaller they are; they have within, not far from the edge, many small knobs or spots, answering to the points of the leaves, wherein the veins or nerves are terminated; besides the leaves are not quite plain, but somewhat rumpled at the brims. Out of the root sprouts forth, sometimes single and sometimes double stalks, as you may see in the cut, and this by-stalk is always somewhat lower than the chief stalk.

The flower grows in a close spike, with many small flesh-coloured flowers, it was so small that I forgot to tell the leaves thereof; the seeds were not then come to maturity. The root sheweth of what kind the plant is, and wherefore it may be called bistorta or snake-weed, for it lieth twisted in the ground; it is about the thickness of your little finger where thickest, hath small fibers, is brown without and flesh-coloured within, and of an astringent taste.

I found this herb in the Danish Harbour, on the 18th of July. My figure agrees most with that which Camerarius hath given in the fourth book and third chapter of Matthiolus.