l82 



The Journal of Heredity 



he had slept." . . "This hearbe," he 

 adds, "groweth in all places in abun- 

 dance, and although it is forbidden to 

 be gathered or once used, ne\er-the-less 

 those that are the principal forbidders 

 of it are such as dayly eat thereof." 



Christoval Acosta, in his Tractado 

 de las Drogas y Medicinas de las Indias 

 Orientales (1578) likens the trumpet- 

 shaped flowers of this plant to those of 

 a Convolvulus and its seeds to lentils. 

 "Among the Hindu enamoradas," he 

 sa>'s, "few are without Datura seeds 

 among their most highly prized treas- 

 ures." They were ground to a powder 

 and administered in wine or some other 

 medium as a love potion to the object 

 of their affection; and, Acosta adds, 

 "he who partakes of it is deprived of his 

 reason (queda enagenado) for a long time 

 laughing, or weeping, or sleeping, with 

 various effects, and often times talking 

 and replying, so that at times he 

 appears to be in his right mind, but 

 really being out of it, and not knowing 

 the person to whom he is speaking, nor 

 remembering what has happened after 

 his alienation has passed. Many 

 mundane ladies are such mistresses 

 and adepts in the use of this seed, that 

 they give it in doses corresponding to 

 as many hours as they wish their poor 

 victim to be unconscious or trans- 

 ported. And truly if I were to tell 

 stories of what I have heard or seen 

 relating to this matter, and the different 

 ways I have seen people act when under 

 the influence of the drug, I would cover 

 many sheets of paper; but as this is not 

 necessary I will refrain. I will only 

 say that I have never seen any one die 

 from its effects; and I have seen some 

 who have gone about for several days 

 perturbed, and this must have been 

 because it had been given to them in 

 too large doses, which if too great will 

 cause death because this seed contains 

 venomous parts, although the Gentiles 

 administer it as a diuretic with pepper 

 and betel leaves and say that it is 



efficacious; but this I have not seen 

 nor tried, having other medicines more 

 safe for the purpose."^ 



The high esteem with which this 

 plant was regarded by the ancient 

 Chinese is indicated by Li Shi-Chen, 

 in his celebrated work on the Materia 

 Medica of China, Pen ts'ao kang mu, 

 published in 1590. According to this 

 author the Chinese name of this plant, 

 man t'o lo hua (probably derived from 

 the Sanscrit) is taken from a famous 

 Bu<ldhist sutra, "Fa hua ching," in 

 which it is stated that when Buddha 

 preaches a sermon the heavens bedew 

 the petals of this plant with rain-drops; 

 and according to a more ancient 

 tradition of the Taoists, the name 

 of the plant is that of one of the circum- 

 polar stars, and every envoy sent down 

 from this star to the earth is supposed 

 to carry in his hand one of its flowers; 

 so that one of the Chinese came to call 

 the flower by the name of the star. 

 Li Shi-Cheii gives a pretty good 

 description of the plant, which he says 

 has leaves resembling those of an egg- 

 plant, flowers with a white hexagonal 

 corolla, blooming in the eighth month 

 (September) and round prickly fruits; 

 but his description is corrected by a 

 Japanese botanist, Ono Ranzan, who 

 says that the flower is normalI\- penta- 

 gonal instead of hexagonal, and this 

 correction is sustained by Siinuma 

 Yokusai, another authority on old 

 Japanese botany, who gives a very good 

 illustration of the flower in question 

 (Fig. 12, No. 1) identifying it with the 

 typical white-flowered form of Datura 

 metel, which is known to the Japanese 

 by the name C/iosen-asagao, or "Korean 

 Morning-glory."^ 



A synopsis of the genus Datura was 

 published by the writer in the Journal 

 of the Washington Academy of Sciences 

 in order to clear up the existing con- 

 fusion in its treatment by taxonomists 

 and to straighten out conflicting state- 

 ments as to the origin of some »)t the 



'Acosta, Christoval. Tractado de las Drogas y medicinas dc las Indias Orientales, p. 88. 

 1578. 



* It is interesting to note in this place that Datura stramonium, our common Jamestown weed, 

 which many botanists have supposed to lie of Asiatic origin is called in Japan, vo5/n/ Chosen-asagao, 

 yoshu, signifying "foreign." 



