A herb of Mars …

Culpeper says …

Basil is the herb by which all authors are together by the ears about, and rail at one another, like lawyers. Galen and Dioscorides hold it not fitting to be taken inwardly, and Chrysippus rails at it with downright Billingsgate rhetoric: Pliny and the Arabian physicians defend it.

A herb of Mars and under the Scorpion, and therefore called Basilicon.

It is no marvel if it carry a kind of virulent quality with it. Applied to the place bitten by venomous beasts, or stung by a wasp or hornet, it speedily draws the poison to it. This herb and Rue will never grow together.

The Complete Herbal, 1649