194 



N. Ord. SOLANACE^:. 

 Tribe Hyoscyamets. 



Genus Hyoscyamus,* Linn. B. & H., Gen., ii, p. 903. Species 

 about 10, natives of the warmer extratropical regions of 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa. 



194. Hyoscyamus niger, Lmn., Sp. Plant., ed. I, p. 179 (1753). 



Henbane. 



Syn.H. agrestis, Kit. H. pallidus, Kit. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 76; Hayne, i, t. 28; Bigelow, i, t. 17; Stepli. 

 and Ch., t. 9; Berg & Sen., t. 16 f; Syme, E., Bot., vi, t. 936; Nees, 

 Gen. Fl. Germ. 



Description. An annual or biennial herb, 1 2J feet high, with 

 a large tap-shaped wrinkled root, brown outside and white within, 

 and an erect, branched, thick, stiff, cylindrical, pale green stem, 

 covered with long, clammy, jointed, glandular hairs. Root-leaves 

 large, 6 8 inches long or more, stalked, spreading in a rosette, 

 triangular-ovate with an undulated sinuate margin, stem-leaves 

 much smaller, passing into bracts, alternate, sessile and somewhat 

 amplexicaul, ovate-oblong, acute, with large undulated, spread- 

 ing laciniae ; all thin, pale green, flaccid, slightly hairy above, 

 more conspicuously below, and the veins covered also with long, 

 viscid- glandular hairs. Flowers numerous, sessile or shortly 

 stalked, solitary in the axils of the large, leafy, spreading bracts, 

 crowded, the whole forming a two-ranked, unilateral, scorpioid 

 spike or raceme, which elongates and straightens out after flowering. 

 Calyx large, bell-shaped, with an ovoid tube and a broadly-funnel- 

 shaped, spreading limb, with 5 shallow, equal, broadly-triangular 

 acute teeth, covered with long, clammy hairs, persistent. Corolla 

 1 1J inch wide, the tube funnel-shaped, the limb spreading, 

 and divided into 5 rounded, blunt, shallow, rather unequal lobes, 

 imbricated in the bud, straw-coloured elegantly net-veined 

 with purple and with a purple throat. Stamens 5, inserted near 



* Hyoscyamus, in Greek i/o^va/woc, literally hog-bean, the classical name. 



