528 



Avtaa, which last genus he had once brought hither. He 

 has finally placed here Aristolochia, Asa rum and Cytinus, 

 as we have mentioned under the 1 1th order. Numphaa 

 also is indicated, but afterwards erased, which is unfor- 

 tunate. 



Order28. Lurid^;. The gloomy family of nightshades, 

 henbane and tobacco. "This order is a most distinct and 

 evident one. All the plants have alternate leaves ; a five- 

 cleft calyx ; monopetalous corolla; stamens four or five ; 

 pistil one ; germen superior ; seed-vessel of two cells, in 

 some a berry, others a capsule. Their corolla folds in a 

 plaited manner." 



Digitalis, Celsia, Verbascum, Nicotiaua, Atropa, Hy- 

 oscyamus, Datura, Physalis, Solarium, Capsicum, are ex- 

 amples of this order. "They are none of them arboreous, 

 though some are shrubby. Colour (of the herbage) mostly 

 dull and lurid ; the taste disagreeable, smell nauseous, 

 hurtful to the nerves, hence their generally poisonous 

 qualities." Ellisia is properly expunged in the manu- 

 script, and Nolana with equal propriety removed hither 

 from the 4 1 st order. 



Linnaeus observes, that "the poisonous quality of Ver- 

 bascum appears in its power of killing fish, if made up 

 into balls with meal." " Nicotia?ia rustica," he says, " fur- 

 nishes the Turks with their best tobacco, yet it is not 

 cultivated by us, though it grows readily. Atropa Man- 

 dragora, a most poisonous and dangerous plant, becomes, 

 under proper management, an excellent and powerful 

 medicine," for instances of which Linneeus referred his 

 hearers to his lectures on the Materia Medica. These, as 

 Giseke notices, were never published. On turning to the 

 manuscripts used by the professor in that course, we find 

 the Mandragora mentioned as " virose, acrid, bitterish 

 and nauseous, useful in the gout and colic; the herb boiled 

 in milk, and applied to scirrhous tumours, more active in 

 dispersing them than hemlock or tobacco. Three of the 

 berries boiled in milk, given to a potter, labouring under 



