126 MEDICINAL HERBS AND POISONOUS PLANTS 



The Woody Niglxtshade (S. Dulcamara) has a shrubby, 

 cliiubino- stem, heart-sliaped leaves, and drooping flowers. 

 It diiubs anioncr bushes, forming purple flowers witlt 

 yellotv anthers (fig. 78). Later, the flowers are succeeded 



4 



by scarlet berries (fig. 78). The name Bittersweet is 



due to the fact that tlie taste of the stem is at first 

 bitter and then becomes sweet. The plant is poisonous 

 in all its parts; on several occasions children have died 

 from having eaten the berries. These are more poison- 

 ous when green than when ripe. A poisonous narcotic 

 alkaloid called solanine and a poisonous glucoside called 

 didcamarin have been extracted from the plant; it is 

 the latter which is responsible for the bittersweet taste. 

 Medicinally the plant is used as a mild narcotic, young 

 branches two or three years old being employed for this 

 purpose. They are cut in autumn and then dried. 



The Black Nightshade {S. nigrum) is a smaller 



plant, about 18 inches high; it exhales a disagreeable 



odour, and its flower forms purple-black globular berries. 

 Like the preceding, it forms the poisonous solanine. It 

 is on record that three children who had eaten the fruit 

 suffered from dilated pupils, nausea, colic, and convul- 



sions. 



The Potato (Solanum tuberosum). — Although not 

 indigenous to Britain, the Potato has been with us so 

 long that for practical purposes it must be regarded as 

 a native plant. It came originally from Chile, being 

 introduced into this country in 1586 by Sir Walter 

 Raleigh. It is not widely known that the leaves and 

 berries of the Potato are narcotic, and that even the 

 useful tuber is not always free from poison. As the 

 latter, however, resides near the surface, and as it is 

 destroyed by the operation of cooking, there is veiy little 

 danger to be apprehended. A tuber contains more of 

 the poison if it has lain near or on the surface and has 



