The plant has a round flattened perennial rhizome, the upper part tunicated as in the onion, the lower and larger portion tuberous and fleshy, with numerous long white radicles in a circle from its upper edge, the under-side covered with a dark, loose, wrinkled epidermis. Spathe ovate, acuminate, convoluted into a tube at the bottom, flattened and bent at top like a hood, varying in colour internally, supported by an erect scape inverted at base by petioles and their acute sheaths. Leaves, one or two standing on long sheathing foot-stalks, ternate. Leaflets oval, mostly entire, acuminate,smooth, paler on under-side, becoming glaucous with growth, the two lateral ones rhomboidal. This is called by some a Mastiff , by others a Warrior , or a Hircan-Dog .
Warts use to possess the forehead, nose, hands, and other open places.
So does hard flesh, and other foulness of the skin. There may be made diverse kinds of sweet compounds, of which are made Beads , which some use to reckon their prayers by, and others to trim their cloths with. It remains, that we speak of Perfumes . For they are very necessary for the scenting of skin, cloths, and Powders . And to enrich nobemen's chambers, with sweet odors in winter.