1859.] EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 109 



around liim, not, at times at least, feeling an overwhelming sense 

 of God^s greatness and goodness, when encircled by the unutter- 

 able splendour and loveliness of mountain scenery. How truly, 

 as well as nobly, does Coleridge sing, when he says, — 



" ' For all that meets the bodily sense I deem 

 Symbolical, one mighty alphabet 

 For infant minds ; and we in the low world, 

 Placed with our backs to bright reality, 

 That we may leam, with young unwounded ken. 

 The substance from its shadow.' " 



Mountain-Ash Berries. 



I see in the ' Phytologist' of the month of October, 1858, a 

 statement about poisoning with the fruit of Pyrus Aucuparia, or 

 Rowan-tree, and the query is put. Are the Rowans poisonous ? I, 

 as one who have a pretty fair acquaintance with fruits, would 

 unhesitatingly answer. No ; — at any rate in the properly under- 

 stood sense of the term. In the days of my boyhood I have 

 eaten them in hundreds, and never sustained the least inconve- 

 nience, further than occasionally a slight colic after an over-feed. 

 They are eaten here by children, rich and poor, without any ill 

 consequences whatever. Few or any fruits belonging to plants 

 of the Rosacea, or Rose family, contain deleterious properties, 

 except — in some, perhaps, as cherries — Hydrocyanic Acid in 

 small quantity. If the medical gentleman and jury had been a 

 little better acquainted with the properties of the Natural Orders 

 of British plants, I doubt not but in the case refered to they 

 would have come to a very different conclusion. 



John Sim. 



Pyrus Aucuparia, {Sorbus Aucuparia.) 



The remarks in the ' Phy tologist ' of February last, on the 

 fruit of this plant, one would conclude had set the question at 

 rest, viz. that they are not jioisonous ; but when gentlemen " learned 

 in medicine," and distinguished by M.D. and LL.B., tell us to the 

 contrary, what are we to say ? We may be told by these gentle- 

 men that botanists are not expected to know the properties of 

 plants, but that the M.D.'s are, and do, — more particularly of 

 those used in medicine, whether poisonous or not. 



