USES OF PLANTS. 5 * 



vegetables or as fruit, and there are very many more 

 which you have never seen or heard of. 



But some plants are very poisonous. Perhaps you 

 have seen the bright red berries growing in the hedge- 

 banks, or in the woods, in autumn a cluster of them 

 upon one short stalk. They are the fruit of "lords 

 and ladies." But do not pick them. They may look 

 nice, but several of our wild English fruits would do 

 you great harm, and perhaps kill you, if you were to 

 eat them. One of them, with a berry like a black 

 cherry, is so poisonous that it is called the " deadly 

 nightshade " (Fig. 38). Never eat any berries or other 

 parts of plants unless you know that they are good 

 for food. 



But here is the dandelion, and we may take it as an 

 instance of the use of plants in medicine. Not only 

 do plants give us food that we may live and grow, but 

 they give us medicine, to ease our pains, and make us 

 well again when we have fallen ill. Rhubarb, and 

 castor oil, and senna tea, what nasty things they are, 

 and yet so useful to do us good. And so are very 

 many of our common plants at home. 



If you took one of the common stinging nettles, 

 and beat its stem against a tree, or bruised it with a 

 stick upon the ground, you would find how tough its 

 stem is. It is stringy or fibrous. Many other plants 

 are so, and from them are made several kinds of 

 matting and linen. From other plants we get our 

 cotton and many things which are used as clothing. 



If oak trees are growing in the neighbourhood, we 



