OUR POISONOUS PLANTS 69 



notice. The name of the place shall not be mentioned : 

 it will be sufficient to speak of it as the Warren. A 

 desolate and dreary region is this stretch of elevated 

 land, far from any human habitation, but the home of 

 countless rabbits, and the nesting-place of the great 

 Norfolk plover. The soil is parched and arid in the 

 extreme, consisting of coarse sand or gravel, with here 

 and there a mixture of crumbling chalk. In places the 

 surface is absolutely bare, as bare as the sea-shore, but 

 for the most part overspread with a scanty covering 

 of herbage, with pale moss and sickly lichens, and 

 strange abundance of yellow stonecrop. Two deep 

 depressions run in a parallel direction across the 

 Warren, and, like the rest of this weird and blighted 

 wilderness, are entirely destitute of trees, except here 

 and there a gnarled and stunted thorn or elder heavily 

 laden with grey and shaggy lichens. A veritable 

 valley of Hinnom has this Hampshire warren been 

 called, where all poisonous and deadly herbs flourish 

 as in a witch's garden. Here Atropa Belladonna may 

 be seen, not in single plants scattered about here and 

 there, but in lavish and incredible abundance. There 

 are thousands of lusty plants. The rabbits fatten upon 

 the leaves and acquire, it is said, a superior flavour. As 

 the summer advances the large bushy plants become 

 loaded with their shining black berries, and make a 

 show not readily forgotten. And the dwale has other 

 deadly plants to keep it company. Its first cousin, the 

 henbane, only occasionally met with elsewhere in 

 Hampshire, grows plentifully on the Warren. It is 

 almost as poisonous as the nightshade, and the whole 

 plant, as Nicholas Culpeper remarks, " has a very 

 heavy, ill, soporiferous smell, somewhat offensive." 

 Here, too, may be seen rank masses of hemlock, and 



