NAT. ORDER, 



SolanacecB 



STRYCHNOS NUX YOMICA. VOMIC NUT OR POISON NUT, 



Class V. Pentandria. Order I. Monogynia. 



Gen. Char. Corolla, five-parted. Berry, one-celled, with a woody 

 rind. 



Spc. Char. Leaves, ovate. Stem, erect. 



This is a large tree, sending off numerous strong branches, cover- 

 ed with dark gray, smooth bark ; the young branches have swelled 

 articulations, or a knotty jointed appearance, scandent, and covered 

 with a bark of a dark green color ; the leaves start from the joints in 

 pairs, upon short footstalks, and are ovate, broad, pointed, entire, with 

 three or five ribs, and on the upper side of a shining gi-een color ; the 

 flowers terminate the branches in a kind of fasciculated umbel ; calyx 

 small, tubular, five-toothed ; corolla monopetalous ; tube cylindrical, or 

 rather inflated at the middle, very long, and at the limb cut into five 

 small ovate segments ; filaments five, short, fixed at the mouth of the 

 tube, and furnished with simple anthers ; germen roundish, supporting 

 a simple style, terminated by a blunt stigma ; fruit a round, smooth, 

 large, pulpy berry, externally yellow, and containing round depressed 

 seeds, covered with downy radiated hairs. 



This tree is a native of the East Indies, and, according to histoiy, 

 was introduced into England in 1778, by Dr. Partrick Russel, but has 

 never yet been cultivated with success in that country. The nux 

 vomica, lignum colubrinum, and faba sancti Ignatii, have been long 

 known in the Materia Medica as narcotic poisons, brought from the 



Vol. III.— 176. 



