BY J. M. PETRIE. 119 



its poisonous properties had been discovered, von Mueller re- 

 placed it among the familiar poison-plants of the Solanacefe. 



ii. It was well known to the aborigines as a poison-plant, and 

 we have the first intimation of its powerful properties from 

 Woolls(18), about 1860. "The aborigines make holes in the 

 trunk and put some fluid in them, which when drunk on the 



following morning produces stupor Branches are thrown 



into pools for the purpose of intoxicating the eels and bringing 



them to the surface Branches hung up in a close room 



have had the eifect of producing giddiness and vomiting." 



iii. About this same time, another and somewhat similar plant 

 had been brought back from the interior of Australia by the 

 Burke and Wills Expedition, and this plant was described by 

 von Mueller (la) as Anfhocercis Hopwoodii (Hopwood being the 

 chief subscriber to this expedition). Bancroft, in 1872, obtained 

 from travellers in the interior, specimens of a plant greatly prized 

 by the aborigines, and which they called "pituri"; and in 1876 

 von Mueller and Bailey identified pituri with Anthocercis Hop- 

 woodii, by the microscopic structure of the leaves. Previous to 

 this, Bentham had doubted the position given to this plant by 

 von Mueller, and in 1876 the latter, after receiving fruiting- 

 specimens from the Giles Expedition (Ic), transferred it, at Dr. 

 Bancroft's suggestion, to the genus Duboisia. 



Bancroft, having learned that pituri was used by the aborigines 

 as a narcotic, made extracts and tried the efi'ects on animals (19). 

 His interesting results at once suggested the examination of the 

 other species of Duboisia, which was apparently never suspected 

 of having valuable properties. Von Mueller wrote, in 1877, 

 that D. myoporoides probably shares the same properties as D. 

 Hopwoodii, since both have the same burning acrid taste; and 

 that the properties of both Duboisias will prove similar to those 

 of stramonium. 



iv. At von Mueller's suggestion, Bancroft then made watery 

 extracts of the leaves of D. myoporoides, and after injecting 

 small amounts into domestic animals, he observed that the 

 "pupil of the eye was always widely expanded, that the animals 



