POWERFUL VEGETABLE POISON. 127 



CHAPTER VII. 



►Same Account of a few of the more rcmarkalle Indian Plants, 

 in which the Species are arranged actoi'ding to the Natural 

 Families to which they belo7ig. 



Plants deserving of particular Notice in the Families, Ranunculaceae— 

 Magnoliaceee— Malvareas— Dipterocarpea;— Combretaceae — Thymeles 

 — Santalacese— RosaeecB — Leguminbsas— Urticeae— Artocarpea'— Be- 

 tiilineae— Euphorbiaceaj — Cedreleae — Aurantiaceae — Anacardiacae — 

 Piperaces — Sapoteae — Valerianese— CinchonaceiE — Lorantheee — Apo- 

 cyneip— Verhenacese— Asphodelete— Palms— Gramineae— Ferns and 

 Acotyledonus Plants— Mosses— Algae— Fungi. 



PANUNCULACE^. 



Ix this family are four species of aconite, natives of the 

 mountain ranges of Northern India. All are said to be 

 virulent poisons ; but one of them in particular, the Acn- 

 nilum ferox, of which a beautiful figure is given in the 

 Plantoe AsioAicce Rariores, is celebrated, and would appear 

 from various experunents to contain a principle nearly, if 

 not quite, as powerful as strychnine, the upas, and voorara 

 poisons. According to Dr. Wallich, it is probably the most 

 deleterious vegetable poison of Continental India. The 

 Sanscrit name is visha (poison), and Dr. Wallich has satis- 

 factorily ascertained that a poisonous plant, alluded to by 

 Dr. Hamilton in the following passage, and called bish or 

 bikh by the natives, is really to be referred to the present 

 species. " This dreadful root, of which large quantities 

 are annually imported, is equally fatal when taken into the 

 stomach or applied to wounds, and is in universal use for 

 poisoning arrows ; and, there is too much reason to siaspect, 

 for the worst of purposes. Its importation would indeed 

 seem to require the attention of the magistrates. The 

 Gorkhalese pretend that it is one of their principal securities 

 against invasion from the low countries, and that they 

 could so infect all the waters on the route by which an 

 enemy was advancing, as to occasion his certain destruc- 



