294. LUTHER BURBANK 



cotic poisons, including belladonna and hyoscy- 

 amus, drugs that have an accepted place in the 

 pharmacopoeia. 



Add that the tobacco plant is another member 

 of the family, and it is clear that this is one of 

 the most curiously versatile, and, from a human 

 standpoint, one of the most important of all the 

 plant tribes. 



My interest in the family extended beyond the 

 familiar plants just named, and included several 

 species of nightshade that are chiefly known as 

 roadside weeds and bearers of berries some of 

 which are eaten on occasion by country folk, but 

 which in the main have a bad reputation, some 

 of them being accounted highly poisonous. 



The name "deadly nightshade," applied to one 

 of the most familiar species, suggests the repute 

 in which these weeds are commonly held. 



Yet it is known to the residents of some 

 country districts, particularly in the Mississippi 

 Valley, that the little black berries of the night- 

 shade, if thoroughly ripe, may be made into pies 

 and eaten with at least relative impunity. It is 

 only in lieu of any fruit of more acceptable char- 

 acter that anyone would be likely to make the 

 experiment, however, as the distant relationship 

 of the plant to the deadly nightshade, Atropa 

 belladonna, and the henbane, Hyoscyamus 



