40 SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



Atriplex hortensis, Linne. 



North and Middle Asia. The Arroche. An annual spiiiage-plant. 



Atriplex nummularium, Lindley. 



From Queensland through the desert tracts to Victoria and South 

 Australia. One of the tallest and most fattening and wholesome 

 of Australian pastoral salt-bushes, also highly recommendable for 

 artificial rearing, as the spontaneously-growing plants, by close 

 occupation of the sheep and cattle runs, have largely disappeared, 

 and as this useful bush even in many wide tracts of Australia does 

 not exist. Sheep and cattle depastured on salt-bush country are 

 said to remain free of fluke and get cured of this Distoma-disease 

 and of other allied ailments. 



Atriplex semibaccatum, R Brown. 



Extra-tropic Australia. A perennial herb, very much liked by 

 sheep. (R. H. Andrews.) 



Atriplex spongiosum, F. v. Mueller. 



Through a great part of Central Australia, extending to the west 

 coast. Available like the preceding and several other native species 

 for salt-bush culture. Unquestionably some of the shrubby extra- 

 Australian species, particularly those of the Siberian and Califor- 

 nian steppes, could also be transferred advantageously to salt-bush 

 country elsewhere, to increase its value, particularly for sheep 

 pasture. 



Atriplex vesicarium, Heward*. 



In the interior of South-Eastern Australia, and also in Central 

 Australia. Perhaps the most fattening and most relished of all the 

 dwarf pastoral salt-bushes of Australia, holding out in the utmost 

 extremes of drought, and not scorched even by sirocco-like blazes. 

 Its vast abundance over extensive salt-bush plains of the Australian 

 interior, to the exclusion of almost every other bush except A. hali- 

 moides, indicates the facility with which this species disseminates 

 itself. 



Atropa Belladonna, Linne. 



The Deadly Nightshade. South and Middle Europe and Western 

 Asia. A most important perennial medicinal herb. The highly 

 powerful atropin is derived from it, besides another alkaloid, the 

 belladonnin. 



Avena elatior, Linne. 



Europe, Middle Asia, North Africa. This tall grass should not be 

 passed altogether on this occasion, although it becomes easily irre- 

 pressible on account of its wide-creeping roots. It should here be 



