84 POISONOUS PLANTS 



offered for sale as the " mandrake," with which it 

 has nothing to do ; as the latter belongs to the 

 Potato Family. The Bryony root is cathartic, 

 sometimes emetic, and causes internal inflammation, 

 being highly irritant. Bruised and applied to the 

 skin, it is capable of producing blisters. 



The foliage is the same in both, being of lobed 

 and pointed rather rough leaves. 



The plant supports itself by long thread-like 

 tendrils, which as soon as they have caught hold 

 of anything make a number of close coils, some 

 one way ; some, about the same number, the other 

 way ; this is to avoid breaking under the strain. 



The flowers are yellowish-green, the male being 

 the larger. It consists of a coherent calyx, a 

 coherent corolla, and five stamens united in two 

 separate pairs and one single one. The anthers 

 are " sinuate," that is taking the form of the letter S- 



The female flower (on the right in the figure) is 

 at once recognized by its globular inferior ovary. 

 The corolla is rather smaller than that of the male 

 plant, and has the three stigmas in the middle ; 

 each of them is bi-lobed. 



The fruit is a scarlet berry. Entire families 

 have been poisoned from eating the root instead 

 of parsnip, and children from eating the berries. 

 Fifteen berries have been known to produce death 

 in a little child ; but forty were consumed by one 

 adult, when death ensued. 



