wood betony

In the May woods are the red and yellow flowers of the Wood Betony and the bell-shaped flowers of Solomon's Seal.

Conspicuous among them are the Centaury, with its elegant cluster of small, pink, star-like flowers; the Ladies’ Bed-straw, with its rich yellow tufts; the Meadow-sweet—sweetest of all the sweeteners of the Meadows; the Wood Betony, lifting up its handsome head of rose-coloured blossoms; and, still in full perfection, and towering up from among the low groundlings that usually surround it, the stately Fox-glove.

Parkinson, who enlarged the Herbal of Gerard, pronounced the leaves and flowers of Wood Betony, "by their sweet and spicy taste, comfortable both in meate and medicine."

Meyrick says, inveterate headaches after resisting every other remedy, have been cured by taking daily at breakfast a decoction made from the leaves and tops of the Wood Betony.

Wood Betony; Lousewort; Beefsteak Plant; High Heal-all Pedicularis canadensis Flowers—Greenish yellow and purplish red, in a short, dense spike.