€2 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



note will be added as to wliat extent tlie natural size has been reduced. 

 Of Mr. Benjamin's work, I can safely say that, apart from tbeir 

 artistic finish, the specimens depicted are accurate and can be depend- 

 '©d upon for the details of their botanical characteristics. They are 

 in every instance copied from nature in their fresh condition, and in 

 each case every attempt is made to secure a typical specimen as far 

 as available, 



" What is a poisonous plant ? "—it will be asked. It is as difficult 

 for a Botanist to answer this question as it is for a Medico- Jurist to 

 define "a poison" in works on Medical Jurisprudence. Not even 

 does the Indian Penal Code attempt to define "a poison," be it of 

 vegetable, animal, mineral, or any other origin. Beck, one of the 

 earliest of the standard writers on Medical Jurisprudence, quotes the 

 definition given by Fodere, which, as the former rightly observes, is 

 probably as unexceptionable as any that has yet been attempted. It 

 runs thus : — " Poisons are substances which are known by X3hysicians 

 as capable of altering or destroying 'in a majority of cases some or 

 all the functions necessary to life." This brief definition may be 

 further illustrated in the words of Dr. Francis Ogston, so as to 

 restrict the term to "such substances as when exhibited in certain 

 quantities to healthy and ordinarily constituted individuals are 

 capable of producing injurious or fatal eifects in a more or less direct 

 and certain way, unless where specially and specifically counteracted." 

 Plants exhibiting such qualities may be looked upon as poisonous. 

 The poison or noxious element may consist of an alkaloid or active 

 principle and may exist in any or all the diif erent parts of the organs 

 of nutrition, viz. : — root, stem and leaves or their appendages, such as 

 hairs, glands, &c., or in the different parts of the organs of repro- 

 duction, viz. : — flower, fruit and seeds. Poisonous plants are more or 

 less speedy in their action, but they may not affect all alike or with 

 equal severity. Their effects vary in an individual under different 

 circumstances. Thus, for instance, the empty or loaded condition of 

 the stomach materially modifies the injurious effects of a poison. The 

 latter state even annihilates the toxic or irritant effects of some 

 poisonous plants. Habit, again, manifestly affects the deleterious 

 effects of poisons. The ganjah-smokers or bhang-drinkers, who 

 respectively indulge in their pipe of the flowering tops of Cannabis 



