POISONOUS PLANTS. 145 



nor shade ; a common-place vegetable miscreant.* 1 

 The leaves are often used to adulterate Senna, which 

 thus becomes a dangerous drug. The plant furnishes 

 a varnish which is of little value (pen estime), it also 

 yields a substance called redoul or redon, which is 

 used as a dye and in tanning, but it is not much 

 grown (pen cultive). 



Coriaria is not far from being evergreen, for the 

 leaves persist in sheltered spots through the greater 

 part of the Winter, The red papillose stigmas 

 resemble those of the Phytolacca Decandra (Ink 

 Plant, or Poke Weed, or American Currant), so that 

 some botanists have suspected a relationship between 

 these plants. The Ink Plant is very unwholesome, if 

 not absolutely poisonous : but it has this advantage 

 over the Coriaria, that with its purple stems and 

 black- red fruits it may claim to be more or less 

 ornamental. In fact it is very suitable to cover a 

 rubbish-heap or to fill up some waste corner. 



Now the fruits of the Phytolacca are used, with 

 very injurious effects, to colour sweets and wine ; and 

 for this reason it is forbidden to grow the shrub in 

 Spain and Portugal. Finding one day a clump of 

 Ink Plant close to a cottage, it occurred to me to 

 ascertain whether the peasants here make any use of 

 it ; so I inquired. They answered quite freely that 

 they sold the fruit to a confectioner in Nice I How 

 many unaccountable headaches and colics would 

 be explained if we only knew what we had 

 swallowed ! Were we but acquainted with some of 

 the ingredients of our eatables and drinkables, we 



* I wish to plead for it that it will cover the most sterile spots, which 

 would otherwise lack vegetation altogether. T. H. 



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