82 A COUSIN-GERMAN. 



.Euphorbiacecz, remarkable for their acrid and more or less 

 purgative juice. In this family occur the most violent 

 drastics, such as the Croton tiglium, whose oil (expressed 

 from the seeds) has long been considered an efficacious 

 medicine. The Garden Nightshade is one of the Solana- 

 cecz, and cousin-german of the useful potato; and the 

 Dog's-tooth grass, whose roots compose three-fourths of 

 our Dossets, is of the same family as our cereals. 



THE GARDEN NIGHTSHADE. 



If you have seen and who has not? the flowers of the 

 potato-plant, you will immediately recognise the flowers of 

 the Garden or Black Nightshade. (Fig. 19.) This noxious 

 herb noxious in some, but useful in other respects, and, 



therefore, not to 

 be visited with too 

 hasty a condemna- 

 tion flowers and 

 fructifies through- 

 out the year. Its 

 fertility is extreme; 

 only the severest 



winter-frosts can 

 FIG. 19. FIG. 20. 



crush out its pro- 

 lific life. The fruits which succeed to the flowers are 

 smaller berries or " apples " than those of the potato. (See 

 Fig. 20.) 



In the history of botany, and even in that of philosophy 3 



