66 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



and not scorched even by sirocco-like blasts. Its vast abundance 

 over extensive salt-bush plains of the Australian interior, to the ex- 

 clusion of almost every other bush except A. halimoides, indicates the 

 facility with which this species gets disseminated of its own accord. 

 Splendid wool is produced in regions where A. vesicarium and A. 

 halimoides almost monopolize the ground for enormous stretches. 

 With other woody species easily multiplied from cuttings also ; but, 

 as remarked by Naudin, producing thousands of fruits in less than 

 three months after sowing, and, as stated by Millardet, has become 

 the marvel of the Delta of the Rhone. 



Atropa Belladonna, Linne. 



The "Deadly Nightshade." Southern and Middle Europe and 

 Western Asia ascending the Himalayas to 12,000 feet. A most 

 important perennial medicinal herb. The highly powerful atropin 

 is derived from it, besides another alkaloid, the belladonnin. The 

 action of belladonna is mydriatic, thus of great moment in ophthalmic 

 surgery. The effect in other respects is very complicated and heroic. 

 Speaking briefly, it is a narcotic of first rank ; amongst its uses are 

 those against asthma, various spasms, epilepsy ; but the whole range 

 of its efficacy cannot be discussed in pages like these. It is an anti- 

 dote to various vegetable poisons. 



Audibertia polystachya, Bentham.* (Salvia mellifera, Greene.) 



California. A shrub, attaining a height of 10 feet ; keeps the 

 bees buzzing with activity about its flowers for honey during the 

 whole spring [A. J. Cook], The same can be said of A. Palmeri 

 (Gray) and some other species of this genus. 



Avena elatior, Linne*. (Arrhenatherum elatius, Beauvois.) 



The tall Meadow-Oatgrass. Europe, Middle Asia, North- Africa. 

 Indigenous in Norway to lat. 68 IT [Schuebeler]. This grass 

 should not be passed altogether on this occasion, although it becomes 

 easily irrepressible on account of its wide-creeping roots. It should 

 be chosen for dry and barren tracts of country, having proved through 

 its deeply penetrating roots to resist occasional droughts better than 

 rye-grass. Hon. J. L. Dow regards it as one of the very best of 

 grasses for sandy soil. Yields more green feed in the Southern 

 States of North- America during winter than most other grasses 

 [Loring]. The bulk yielded by it is great ; it submits well to 

 depasturing, and gives two or three crops of hay annually thus, a 

 total up to 80 cwt. [Stebler]. It is, however, not so much relished 

 by animals as many other grasses, and should never be sown by itself. 



Avena fatua, Linne. 



Wild Oats. Europe, Northern Africa, Northern and Middle Asia, 

 eastward as far as Japan. The experiments of Professors Buckman 

 and Haussknecht indicate that our ordinary cultivated Oat (Avena 



