198 ORD. NII. Solanacee, seu Luride. DATURA STRAMONIUM. 
large, broad towards the base, pointed at the extremity, indented, 
and formed into several obtuse angles, smooth, of a dark green 
colour, and standing upon strong round short footstalks: the flowers 
are solitary, large, white, and placed on short erect peduncles at 
the junction of the branches: the calyx is composed of one — 
tubular, pentangular, and divided at the brim into five teeth: 
corolla is white, monopetalous, funnel-shaped, plicated, cut at a 
margin into five teeth, and furnished with a long cylindrical tube: 
ihe five filaments are tapering, about the length of the calyx, ad- 
hering to the tube, and supplied with oblong flat antherz: the 
germen is oblong, and placed above the insertion of the corolla: 
the style is filiform, equal in length to the filaments, and terminated 
by a thick blunt stigma: the capsule is large, oval, fleshy, beset 
with spines, divided into the cells, and four valves, which contain 
numerous kidney-shaped seeds. It grows wild in this country, 
about dunghills, rubbish, and in gardeus, flowering in July. 
This plant has been long known as a powerful narcotic ‘poison ; 
its congener, the D. Metel, is thought to be Brevyvs uannos Of Theo- . 
phrastus and Dioscorides, and is therefore the species received by 
Linnzus into the Materia Medica. The Stramonium, in its recent 
state, has a bitterish taste, and a smell somewhat resembling that of 
poppies, or as called by Bergius, narcotic, especially if the leaves 
be rubbed betwixt the fingers. By holding the plant to the nose 
for some time, or sleeping in a bed where the leaves are strewed 
giddiness of the head and stupor are said to have been produced.* 
Instances of the deleterious effects of this plant are numerous, 
-especially of the seeds,” some of which we shall relate for the pur- 
* Stoerck, t.c. p. 5. 
* Kramer, in Comm. Nor. A. 1733. p. 251. Kaauw. impet. n. 349. Lobsten 
epist. ad Gurrin, plant, venen. Alsat, Clauder. prax. med, leg. Cas. i, Eph. 
Nat: Cur. Gent. ix. obs. 94. Huckel, in Comm. Lit. Nor. 1744. p. 14. Kaauw. 
Aét. Franc. i. p. 200. Buchner, Miscell, 1725. p. 611. Eph. Nat. cur. Dec. iii. 
~ a. 3. obs. 170, Barrere, Essai sur Uhist. nat, de la France (ed. nov.) p. 48. 
Deering. Catal. of Plants, &c. p. 209. » Misc. Phys. Math. Med. 1797. 
p- 122. Sauvages, Nosot. T. 2, P. 2, p. PF celer, Med. Comm. vol.v. p. 161. 
Rush. Med. Com, vol. i. 74. 
