Red Behen.
Limonium majus.
A COMMON wild plant about our sea-coasts, and a very pretty one. It grows to a foot in height; the stalks are naked, and the flowers red; and, in their disposition, they somewhat resemble lavender, whence the plant is also called by some sea lavender. About the bottoms of the stalks stand clusters of large and broad leaves, rounded at the ends, of a deep green colour and fattish substance; these rise immediately from the root, and the stalks grow up among them. The stalks are very tough and strong, and branched, and of a paler green: the root is long and reddish.
The people in Essex cure themselves of purgings, and of overflowings of the menses, with an infusion of this root; and it is a very great medicine, though little known. It is to be gathered, as soon as the young leaves appear, cleaned and dried; it may be taken in powder half a drachm for a dose. These are not the white and red behen roots of the old writers on physick, but they are better.
