269 



Sir J. E. Smith to Sir T. G. Cullum. 



My dear Sir Thomas, Norwich, Aug. 81, 1820. 



I must thank you for your very kind letter, and 

 the good news it contained, which is beyond our 

 hopes. Pray tell Lady Cullum her little postscript 

 is worth more than its weight in gold, and we value 

 it accordingly. 



The confusion about Belladonna exists in Ray's 

 own second edition of his Synopsis, where three 

 lines relating to Solatium porno spinoso &c. Datura 

 stand (in p. 150) between other paragraphs, which 

 all evidently belong to Atropa Belladonna. There 

 are no berries (bacca) for children to eat in the 

 Datura. Dillenius has not corrected this error in 

 the third edition, p. 266 ; though he has there 

 printed what regards Datura in larger characters, 

 and marked it as a species with the §. But this 

 only increases the error, as he leaves the remarks 

 as they were. 



" Somniferum est et malignum" though it may 

 be true of Datura, proves, by the word " daccas'" 

 and all that follows, to belong to the Atropa. 



I gathered Dianthus virgineus on Mount Cenis, 

 — exactly like Bot. Mag. t. 1740. 



I was at Sir Joseph Banks's on Sunday evening, 

 the 2 1 st of May, and left the room with the same 

 melancholy forebodings that you did a fortnight 

 after. I was with him alone a few days before, and 

 he told me he was quite easy about the event, which 



