Vintage Dandelion Illustration Poster

Vintage Dandelion Illustration-Elizabeth Blackwell's illustration of the dandelion, a common wild flower used by apothecaries as a diuretic to stimulate the flow of urine. She describes the root as “about a finger thick and eight inches long full of a white bitter milk”. This latex is found inside the whole plant and was used to treat warts, corns and verrucas. Blackwell also notes that dandelion leaves were “much eaten as a salad in the spring”. From 1737 to 1379, Elizabeth Blackwell published four plates each week, until she had produced 500 images. The complete work was published in two volumes and entitled “A Curious Herbal containing five hundred cuts of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick, to which is added a short description of ye plants and their common uses in physick”.