THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 49ii 



I cannot refrain from quoting here the remarks 1 have come across 

 reoarding the genus Bryonia, under which Loudon describes the species 

 I have called in this paper Corallocarpus epigcea^ as Bryonia. epig<xa* 

 Loudon derives the generic name -Sr^owea from the Greek Bruo = 

 to push or grow rapidiv, in allusion to the manner of its grov^rth. * * * 

 "The root" (presumably of the whole genus) grows to a vast size." 

 That it does grow to a large size, and in a very irregular mariner too, 

 I can vouch for in the plant which lam now describing, and which was 

 in the days of Loudon known as Bryonia epigcea. " Grerarde says," 

 observes Loudon, " that the Queen's Chiefe Ghirurgeonj Master 

 William Goodorous, showed me a root hereof," i,e.^ either of 

 Bryonia alba or B. dioica — I am unable to ascertain vehich, " that 

 waied halfe an hundred waigbte, and of the bignesse of a cliilde 

 of a yeere old." Loudon observes further as follows : — " To 

 this Linnseus ascribes the quickness of its growth, though it springs 

 late. The roots have been formerly by imposters brought into 

 an human shape, carried about the country and shown for 

 mandrakes to. the common people. The method which these people 

 practised was to open a yonng thriving bryony plant, being careful 

 not to disturb the lower fibres ; to fix a mould such as is used by those 

 who make plaster figures close to the root, fastening it with wire to 

 keep it in its proper situation, and then to fill in the earth about the 

 root leaving it to grow to the shape of the mould, which is effected ia 

 one summer.' 



Youno" Indian collectors of the mandrake root so-called, beware! 

 The delusion and deception that Loudon has described is practised in 

 India also. Human nature is the same all the world over, whether it 

 is for cunnino' men to practise delusion on credulous men, or for credu- 

 lous collectors of curiosities botanical to be deluded into deception of 

 the most unsuspected yet atrocious kind. I know of one individual at 

 least among our young Indian Botanists who has fallen an unsuspect- 

 ing victim to this trick of field collectors of botanical specimens for 

 the mere purposes of trade. 



The plant I am describing is by some native writers called Shiva- 

 Ungi to denote the peculiar appearance of the seed of the plant, ovoid, 

 aud marked with a sharp convexity on one o f the sides. But according 



" * " An Encyclopsedia of Plants," London, 1829, pp. 810 and 811. 



