These flower in the Summer onely, but the Spanish wilde kinde flowreth very late, so that oftentimes in our Country, the Winter taketh it before it can giue ripe seede: the double kindes, as well the vpright as the ordinary or wilde, are very choise and dainty many times, not yeelding good seede. The Names. They are called diuersly by diuers Writers, as _Consolida regulis_, _Calcaris flos_; _Flos regius_, _Buccinum Romanorum_, and of Matthiolus, _Cuminum siluestre alterum Dioscoridis_: but the most vsuall name with vs is _Delphinium_: but whether it be the true _Delphinium_ of Dioscorides, or the Poets Hyacinth, or the flower of Aiax, another place is fitter to discusse then this. Wee call them in English Larkes heeles, Larkes spurres, Larkes toes, or clawes, and Monkes hoods. The last or Spanish kinde came to mee vnder the name of _Delphinium latifolium trigonum_, so stiled eyther from the diuision of the leaues, or from the pods, which come vsually three together. Bauhinus vpon Matthiolus calleth it, _Consolida regalis peregrina paruo flore_. The Vertues. There is no vse of any of these in Physicke in these dayes that I know, but are wholly spent for their flowers sake. CHAP. L. _Balsamina fœmina._ The Female Balsam Apple. I haue set this plant in this place, for some likenesse of the flower, rather then for any other comparison, euen as I must also with the next that followeth. This plant riseth vp with a thicke round reddish stalke, with great and bunched ioynts, being tender and full of iuice, much like to the stalke of Purslane, but much greater, which brancheth it selfe forth from the very ground, into many stalkes, bearing thereon manie long greene leaues, snipt about the edges, very like vnto the Almond or Peach tree leaues; among which from the middle of the stalkes vpwards round about them, come forth vpon seuerall small short foot-stalkes many faire purplish flowers, of two or three colours in them, fashioned somewhat like the former Larkes heeles, or Monks hoods, but that they are larger open at the mouth, and the spurres behinde crooke or bend downewards: after the flowers are past, there come in their places round rough heads, pointed at the end, greene at the first, and a little yellower when they bee ripe, containing within them small round blackish seede, which will soone skippe out of the heads, if they be but a little hardly pressed betweene the fingers: the rootes spread themselues vnder ground very much from the toppe, with a number of small fibres, annexed thereunto: this is a very tender plant, dying euery yeare, and must bee sowne carefully in a pot of earth, and tended and watered in the heate of Summer, and all little enough to bring it to perfection. [Illustration: