152 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



New Holl. MSS. {Syzygium lucidum Graertn.)." Tlie original MSS. 

 relating to Banks's Australian collections contain a full description of 

 the pla^it by Solander, the names quoted above having been added by 

 the ever-careful Dryander. For the botanical history of the plant, 

 which was not refound until 1891, reference must be made to my 

 paper above, where it is identitied with Myrtiis nitida Gmel. 

 (1791), Graertner's earlier name lucida (1788) being preoccupied in 

 MyHus. 



SHORT NOTES. 



CEnanthe ceocata L. The Irish Naturalist for February 

 contains an interesting paper by Mr. C. B. Mott'at in which he 

 discusses the character of (Enanthe crocata as a poisonous plant. A 

 summary of the opinions of various writers, published in Nature for 

 July 4, 1918 (p. 35-1), shows that "they all agree in pronouncing 

 every part of the plant virulently poisonous " ; yet careful experiments 

 undertaken by Sir Robert Christison, while proving its virulence as 

 grown near Woolwich and near Liverpool, showed that as grown near 

 Edinburgh it Avas devoid of toxic properties. Mr. Moffat observed 

 that in 1918 and 1919, at Ballyhyland, Co. Wexford, " three different 

 herds of cows were found to make a regular practice of eating [it], 

 not as a last resource, but as a favourite article of diet," of which 

 " they made a substantial meal " with no disastrous results. In 

 another locality, the deaths of cows were traced to the roots of the 

 plant, but their poisonous nature has never been called in question. 

 The account of the poisoning of " a Dutchman " which Threlkeld, as 

 quoted by Mr. Moffat, epitomizes, will be found in Phil. Trans, xv. 

 84 (1698) ; it was in the first instance sent by Francis Yaughan to 

 Ray, who sent it to Sloane (see Correspondence of Bay, p. 313). 

 The "classical instance" relating to the poisoning of boys by eating 

 the roots is well known, but it may be worth while to quote the case 

 of the Dutchman in full : " There was also a Dutchman, about two 

 years [since], within eight miles of this place [Clonmel, Co. Tipperary], 

 poisoned by boiling and eating the tops of this plant shred into his 

 pottage ; he was soon after found dead in his boat, and his little Irish 

 boy gave accounts of the cause of his death to be eating this herb, 

 which he forewarned liis master against, but in vain, the Dutchman 

 asserting that it was good salad in his country." Ray refers to other 

 cases " of the miserable destruction o£ divers persons by the eating of 

 the roots of this pernicious and deleterious plant," but does not 

 mention another in which the foliage produced fatal results. Light- 

 foot, however (Fl. Scotica, 163 ; 1777), says " The roots and leaves 

 are a terrible poison ; several persons have perished by eating it thro' 

 mistake, either for water-parsneps or for celeri, which last it resembles 

 pretty much in its leaves." He adds a note regarding Ehret, which 

 is of interest: "So extremely deleterious is its nature, that I re- 

 member to have heard the 'late Mr. Christopher D. Ehret, that 

 celebrated botanic painter, say, that while he was drawing this plant, 

 the smell or effluvia onlv rendered him so giddy that he was several 



