n 4 SUMMER 



and more notorious companion, the deadly nightshade, forms 

 by the middle of June a conspicuous rounded bush of three 

 or four feet high, and is all the more noticeable for the 

 fresh green of its broad pointed leaves. The blossoms hang 

 like bells, and their deep purple brown has a peculiar livid 

 appearance which is highly suggestive of evil, as is the 

 henbane blossom with its congested purple veins. Both 

 plants look thoroughly poisonous, as indeed they are. 

 Hyoscyamin is the poison yielded by the henbane, atropine 

 or belladonna that of the deadly nightshade ; and both have 

 played their part in crime in modern and ancient times. 

 The peculiar danger of the nightshade is the attractiveness 

 of its large cherry-like berry to small children later in 

 summer. It frequently grows among old ruins, which 

 children like to play in and explore. Like the blackberry 

 it finds among the decaying mortar a suitable calcareous 

 soil, and it is fatally easy when blackberrying to turn from 

 the wholesome to the fatal fruit. 



At midsummer the dark blossoms are usually only just 

 opening their covert eyes, and the bush has only just come 

 to its full height. Meanwhile the common woody nightshade 

 is scrambling with its long stringy stems to the tops and 

 flanks of the yew and elder bushes, or, when unable to reach 

 any such support, unwillingly disposing itself as a little 

 standard bush a foot or eighteen inches high. The pretty 

 purple blossom with its spiked yellow centre is much like a 

 miniature potato- flower ; for man's staple vegetable belongs 

 to a shy family, and has barely escaped being a poison 

 instead of a food. Woody nightshade is an indefatigable 

 climber, without possessing either the thorns or tendrils or 

 the spiral habit of growth by which most other climbing 

 plants make their way. It simply rests its straggling arms 

 on the twigs among which it climbs, and pushes on a stage 



