Ill 



nature has been detected by the keen senses of. taste or smell. For this 

 reason I can make no excuse for people, who are old enough to think, 

 who allow themselves to be poisoned, and I do not believe any sensible 

 person ever will. 



I quite agree with my friend Professor Macoun who a few years 

 ago, in speaking of the vast supplies of good wholesome food going to 

 waste all round us every year in the shape of various fungi, touched on 

 this subject and speaking of the small number of poisonous plants in 

 any locality said: "I have no patience with the stupid people who 

 allow themselves to starve to death in a country clothed with grass, 

 plants, and trees, nearly all of which are capable of sustaining life." 

 With regard to such plants as contain noxious principles there are a few 

 general rules, which may be borne in mind by those who travel in the 

 wilds and are liable to require such knowledge, and to which, without 

 going into undue detail, it may not be amiss to refer here. Plants 

 belonging to the same natural order, as a rule, contam similar constitu- 

 ents. There are large orders of plants every member of which makes 

 wholesome food, notwithstanding the occasional presence of acrid 

 principles ; such we find in the cress family which may always be 

 recognized by their cruciform flowers, made up of four separate petals 

 The same may be said of all the rose family which have the stamens 

 standing on the calyx as we find in the rose and apple. All grasses as 

 wheat and corn, and all plants bearing papilionaceous flowers as the 

 bean, the pea, and clover, produce wholesome food for man and beast. 



Mrs. Lincoln in her "Familiar Lectures rn Botany" says "Such 

 plants as have five stamens and one pistil^ with a corolla of a dull livid 

 colour, and a disagreeable smell, are usually poisonous ; the thorn apple 

 (Stramonium) and tobacco are examples. The umbelliferous plants, 

 which grow in wet places, have usually a nauseous smell : such plants 

 are poisonous, as the water hemlock. Umbelliferous plants which grow- 

 in dry places, usually have an aromatic smell and are not poisonous, 

 as caraway and fennel. Plants with labiate corollas, and containing 

 their seeds in capsules, are often poisonous, as the foxglove {Digitalis) ; 

 also such as contain a milky J7ace, unless they are compound flowers. 

 Such plants as have horned or hooded nectaries, as the columbine and 

 monk's hood are mostly poisonous. Amongst plants which are seldom 



