Flower Gentle.

Botanical name: 

Amaranthus.

A garden flower. There are many kinds of it; but that used in medicine is the large one with the drooping purple spike. It grows to four feet high. The stalk is firm, round, and channelled, green sometimes, but often red. The leaves are oblong and broad even at the edges, and pointed at the ends: they are very large, and are often tinged with red. The flowers are purple, and they grow in long beautiful spikes hanging down wards.

The flowers are the part used. They are to be gathered when not quite full blown, and dried. They are good against purging and overflowing of the menses in powder or decoction.


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