FIGWORT TRIBE 21 



of light. A specimen of this plant was exhibited in 1850 to the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer, by a deputation who waited on him respecting the abolition 

 of the tax on windows. This plant had lived for some years in a Wardian 

 case, on the top of a model of an abbey. The branches, which grew towards 

 the light, invariably produced leaves of the full size, with perfect flowers 

 and fruit ; whilst those branches which trailed down between the model and 

 the window, and were nearly without light, never produced either blossom 

 or fruit, and the leaves were not more than one-tenth the ordinary size. 

 As all the other conditions of the plant were the same, this dwarfed and 

 starved state of one part of the Toad-flax arose solely from the want of 

 light, and was well calculated to show the depressing effects of darkened 

 dwellings. 



Dr. Joseph Hooker, when in the Himalaya, saw a similar plant, the yellow 

 branched Toad-flax, winding itself over every ruined wall of some ancient 

 fortress in the Soane Valley, just as the ivy -leaved species does in this 

 country. If the Himalayan kind should have the same singular mode of 

 depositing its seeds, we wonder not that its fertility should be equal. Our 

 Ivy-leaved Toad-flax has a peculiarity almost without a parallel in the vege- 

 table kingdom. The capsules before ripening turn round towards the wall 

 on which the plant so often grows, and place themselves in a crevice or hole, 

 so as to shed the seeds, when ripened, in a place where they may thrive, 

 instead of scattering them on the ground, where they would be wasted. The 

 leaves of our species are shaped much like those of the ivy ; are smooth, 

 thick, and succulent, often of a pinkish-purple beneath, and they have a 

 warm pungent flavour like the water-cress. The plant is often placed in a 

 pot hung from the cottage ceiling, where it sometimes attains great luxuri- 

 ance. The author once measured a leaf from a cottage plant which was two 

 inches and three-quarters across. The flowers expand from May to Septem- 

 ber ; they are small, and of a pale or dark bluish-lilac. 



This plant is used medicinally in India, and apparently with some success. 

 It formerly acquired much celebrity as being one of the ingredients of that 

 terrible poison known in France as the Poudre de Succession. The dreadful 

 art of slow and secret poisoning, by which the victim seemed sinking from * 

 the ravages of lingering disease, is less possible now that chemistry has 

 enabled us to detect more readily the presence of any deleterious substance. ' 

 But it is not much more than a century since this wicked art had acquired 

 such perfection that the celebrated Tophania, a woman residing at Naples, 

 sold her cruel compound ; and found so many ready to share her wickedness, 

 that she is said to have caused the death of six hundred persons. G-arelli, 

 the physician to Charles VI., King of the Two Sicilies, analysed her poison, 

 and found it to be composed of an arsenical oxide, dissolved in a liquid called 

 Aqua Cymbalurm, which was made of the lAy-leaved Toad-flax. 



" Hearts have been found — thank Heaven ! not often found- 

 So soil'd and stain'd by the polluting air 

 And ■weariness of cities, men so vile, 

 And women, too, alas ! sometimes, who've mix'd 

 Poison with the pure perfumes of a flower. " 



The Ivy-leaved Toad-flax, from being believed to mingle with the Poudre 



