28 JOURNA L, BOMB A Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV. 



I now proceed to say a few words about the Scent of the flowers. 

 Opinions on this point vary ; there is the old saying : — " Quot hominesy 

 tot senteniice. — as inany men, so many opinions. This is the same as 

 saying in the gustatory line, de gustihus non disputandum.^^ Lindley 

 says that the flowers of Datura are sweet-scented, especially at night. 

 Note that the flowers of Datura of all kinds open about sunset, or just 

 after, and close about or soon after sunrise. Bishop Hebr's lines are 

 well worth quoting here : — 



" The broad Datura bears her breast 

 Of fragrant scent, a virgin white, 

 A pearl amidst the realms of night." 

 These lines are somewhat differently worded in Rev. Mr. Nairne's 

 '' Flowering Plants of Western India" (p. 209, 1894), but the fragrance 

 of the flowers is referred to. Mr. Donald McDonald says the Datura 

 shrubs produce amidst a mass of elegant foliage largo and fragrant 

 trumpet-shaped flowers. " Those flowers that are lasting may be taken 

 under glass to impart a delicate yet powerful scent throughout the 

 green-house."* 



As regards the odour of the leaves of Datura the general testimony 

 is that they are rank, smokj-. The odour is characteristically offensive ; 

 herbivorous animals shrink from it, says Kerncr. Lauder Brunton 

 says that the leaves have a heavy odour, which is strongest while 

 they are drying, and of a mawkish faintly bitter nauseous taste. 

 Over four hundred years ago John Gerarde, of London, made 

 the following remarks on the Thorn-apple plant in an elaborate 

 and wonderfully accurate work entitled ''The Herball" : — "The 

 flowers are of strong pouticke savour offending the head when smelled 

 unto. * * * The herbe itselfe is of a strong savour and doth stuffe 

 the head and causeth drowsinesse." (P. 347). In Sowerby's later 

 work first published about the middle of the nineteenth century, and 

 entitled '' British Poisonous Plants," it is said that the leaves of I). 

 stramonium have a slightly foetid odour, but the flowers are sweet- 

 scented though producing stupor if their exhalations are breathed 

 for any length of time. (P. 29, 2nd Ed ., 186 1 , London). " The whole 

 plant smells of bean meal.'' (P. 134, Loudon's Encyclopoedia of Plants, 

 1829, London). The flowers, says Loudon, have an agreeable odour 



* See p. 37, 1895, " Sweet-Scented Flowers," 



