ARUM DRACUNCULUS, 



OR, 



DRAGON ARUM 



This' extremely foetid poisonous * plant will not admit of sober description. Let us therefore 

 personify it. 



She f comes peeping from her purple crest with mischief fraught: from her green covert 

 projects a horrid spear of darkest jet^ which she brandishes aloft: issuing from her nostrils 

 flies a noisome vapour infecting the ambient air: her hundred arms are interspersed with 

 white^ as in the garments of the inquisition; and on her swollen trunk are observed the 

 speckles of a mighty dragon : her sex is strangely intermingled with the opposite ! t confusion 

 dire! — all framed for horror; or kind to warn the traveller that h^x fruits slyq poison-berries, 

 grateful to the sight hut fatal to the taste, such is the plan of Providence^ and such her 

 wise resolves. 



" Thy soul's first hope! thy mother's sweetest joy !" 



Cried tender Laxjra^ as she kiss'd her boy, 

 " Oh wander not where Deagon Arum show'rs 

 " Her baleful dews, and twines her purple flow'rs, 

 " Lest round thy neck she throw her snaring arms, 

 " Sap thy life's blood, and riot on thy charms. 

 " Her shining herry, as the ruby bright, 

 " Might please thy taste, and tempt thy eager sight: 

 ^' Trust not this specious veil; beneath its guise, 

 '' In honey'd streams ^ fatal poison lies." 



So Vice allures with Virtues pleasing song, 

 And charms her victims with a Sirens tongue. 



Frances Arabella Rowden. 



* From the root, however, of this plant, a powerful and useful sternutatory may be made. 



t In this description the author has had in view the fancy of the ancients respecting that being whom they represented as hostile to man. 



'H^bi Se xoi) woXuTTSJf 

 Kai 7roXi;%£(/5, ot dsivoTg 

 KpvTfjoixevoc "Ko-xoiq 

 KaXzoTTiSS 'Epmvs. 



Lo! with unnumber'd hands, and countless feet. 

 The Fury comes, her destin'd prey to meet ; 

 Deep in the covert hid. — 



Sophocles. 



t Linneeus places this plant in the class Gynandria, other authors refer it to Moncecia, and in our reformed system it comes under the 

 class Many Males, order, flowers spathed. 



