. ~~ ¢ 
- ROOT annual, branched, whitith, hung with nunicrous {mall 
fibres. Stalk above a foot in height, alternately branched, formed 
into angles by a foliaceous membrane, {welled at the bafé of each 
branch, rough, and of a dingy purple colour, Leaves on footftalks, 
alternate, irregularly ovate, finuated, or indentated, and clothed with 
foft hairs. Flowers in a fpecies of umbel, upon 4 common lateral 
flower ftalk. Calyx divided into five {mall fhort permanent fegments. 
Corolla feparated into five fegments, which are oval, pointed, fpread- 
ing, and of a whitifh colour. Filaments five, fhort, downy, ter 
minated by yellow oblong contiguous antherz. Germen roundith, 
fupporting a tapering downy ftyle, furnifhed with a round ftigma. 
Fruit a round two-celled berry, changing from a green to a black 
colour, and containing feveral kidney-fhaped yellowith feeds. 
' It is common about rubbifh, dunghills, and in negleéted gardetis, 
producing its flowers during all the fummier months. . 
The {mell of this plant is faint and difagreeable; to the tafte it 
manifefts no peculiar flavour, being fimply herbaceous. It appears to 
-poffefs the deleterious qualities of the other Nightfhades in a very 
confiderable degree; even the odour of the plant is faid to be fo 
powerfully nareotic as to caufe fleep.* 3 
The berries are equally poifonous with the leaves. Three children, 
upon eating them, were fuddenly feized with cardialgia and delirium, 
accompanied with fpafms, and remarkable diftortions of the limbs: 
and to poultry they proved fatal in a fhort time.‘ 
The plant, or rather the leaves which were boiled and eaten by 4 
mother and four children, produced fwellings of the face and limbs, 
followed by inflammation -and gangrene; but the hufband, who 
likewife ate of this vegetable at the fame time, found no confequent 
- diforder.* : = 
Its deleterious effects appear fill more certain from the experiments 
* Boccones Mufeo di fis. ps 284 > Vide Wepfer De cicut. p. 226. 
: © Haller: les 
‘ Rucker. Commeres Norics 173%. ps 3725 f | 
0. é 
