Golden-rod, which has a very straight stalk crowded from top to bottom
with leaves, is sometimes four, sometimes five feet high, and adorned
with a bright, yellow flower, abounds in the plains of Paraguay. Both
its trunk, and leaves, boiled in water, and mixed with alum, afford
painters, and dyers a most splendid yellow colour, and mixed with blue a
very bright green. The same golden-rod is also of great, and various use
amongst physicians. I remember a gentlewoman, who had been confined to
her bed for years by some disease which baffled the skill of many
physicians, being quickly, and happily cured, by a German, who
prescribed the use of this medicine. There are many species of
golden-rod, but I was acquainted with only one in Paraguay.