Hazelwort. 16th century Italian illustration of hazelwort (Asarum europaeum), by Gherardo Cibo, 1568. An angel observes the pastoral scene from the heavens. Also known as asarabacca, European wild ginger, and wild spikenard, hazelwort has been used traditionally as an emetic and a cathartic. This plate is taken from Discorsi on Dioscorides' De Materia Medica by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, a work of herbal medicine first published in Italy in 1554. Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577) was an Italian doctor and naturalist who wrote commentaries on De Materia Medica , an encyclopaedia of herbal medicine by the first century Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides.