Strawberries (fragaria), in Colern woods, exceeding plentifull; the earth is not above two inches above the free-stone. The poor children gather them, and sell them to Bathe; but they kill the young ashes, by barking them to make boxes to put them in. Strawberries have a most delicious taste, and are so innocent that a woman in childbed, or one in a feaver, may safely eate them: but I have heard Sir Christopher Wren affirm, that if one that has a wound in his head eates them, they are mortall. Methinks ’tis very strange. Quaere, the learned of this? About Totnam-well is a world of yellow weed (q. nomen) which the diers use for the first tinge for scarlet; and afterwards they use cutchonele. Bitter-sweet (dulcamara), with a small blew flower, plenty at Box. (And Market Lavington, in the withy-bed belonging to the vicarage.-BISHOP TANNER.) Ferne (filix); the largest and rankest growes in Malmesbury hundred: but the biggest and tallest that ever I saw is in the parke at Draycot Cerne, as high almost as a man on horseback, on an ordinary horse. “The forest of Savernake is of great note for plenty of game, and for a kind of ferne there that yieldeth a most pleasant savour”.-(Fuller’s Worthies: Wilts, Hen. Sturmy.) This ferne is mentioned by Dr. Peter Heylin in his Church History, in the Pedegre of Seymour. The vicar of Great Bedwin told me that he hath seen and smelt the ferne, and that it is like other ferne, but not so big. He knowes not where it growes, but promised to make enquirie. Now Mr. Perkins sayes that this is sweet cis, and that it is also found in the New Forest; but me thinkes the word Savernake seems to be a sweet-oke-ferne:—oke, is oake; verne is ferne; perhaps sa, or sav, is sweet or savorous.—(Vide Phytologia Britannic., where this fern is taken notice of. Sweet fern is the vulgar name, for sweet chervill or cicely; but I never found that plant wild in England.—J. RAY.) Danes-blood (ebulis) about Slaughtonford is plenty. There was heretofore (vide J. Milton) a great fight with the Danes, which made the inhabitants give it that name. Wormewood exceedingly plentifull in all the wast grounds in and about Kington St. Michael, Hullavington, and so to Colerne, and great part of the hundred of Malmesbury. Horse-taile (equisetum). Watchmakers and fine workers in brasse use it after smooth filing. They have it from Holland; but about Dracot Cerne and Kington St. Michael, in the minchin-meadow of Priory St. Maries, is great quantity of the same. It growes four and five foot high. Coleworts, or kale, the common western dish, was the Saxon physic. In the east it is so little esteemed that the poor people will not eate it.