Atropa.] SOLANACE^. 3!29 



II. Atropa, Linn. Dwale * 



" Calyx 5-partite. Corolla campanulate, with a short tube, the 

 lobes equal. Stamens distant above. Berry of 3 cells." — Br. Fl. 



1. A. Belladonna, L. Deadly Nightshade. Divale. Stem 

 herbaceous, leaves ovate quite entire, flowers axillary stalked 

 mostly solitary. Sm. E. Fl. i. p. 317. Br. Fl. p. 283. Lind. 

 Syn. p. 182. E. B. ix. t. 592. Curt. Fl. Lond. fasc. 5, t. 16. 

 Jac. Fl. Aust. iv. 5, t. 309 (opt.) 



In woods, hedges and bushy places, on waste ground, amongst ruins, under 

 park-palings, and sometimes on the pebbly beach ; very rare, if not now extinct, 

 i^i. June — August, i^r. August, September. 2f. 



Under the palings near the gardener's cottage at Knighton Manor-house, in 

 considerable plenty, Ladi/ Brenton. 



I have sought carefully and repeatedly for this plant at Knighton, but hitherto 

 without success. A coloured sketch taken of the living plant, by Lady Brenton, 

 leaves no room to doubt the correctness of the observation, and she believes 

 some alterations made on the premises may have caused its disappearance. 



Root perennial, thick, whitish and fle^iy, creeping by offsets from the crown. 

 Stem 1 or several, from 2 feet or under to 3, 4, or even 5 feet in height, herba- 

 ceous, erect, pale green or purplish, firm, solid, simple, subterete, slightly angular 

 and furrowed below, dividing above into usually .3, sometimes 4 main divaricate 

 branches, often with a smaller and shorter supplementary one, which are dicho- 

 tomously forked, leafy, and covered like the rest of the stem, but more copiously, 

 with short, spreading, glandulose pubescence. Leaves quite entire, dull green, 

 nearly glabrous above, paler and a little hairy bensath, as on the stem, especially 

 along the prominent ribs, of a weak flaccid texture and somewhat fat, fleshy or 

 succulent, hence quickly drooping when gathered ; the lower and middle stem- 

 leaves alternate or scattered, often 9 or 10 inches long and 5 to 6 inches wide, 

 ovate-elliptical, acute, tapering into short, semiterete, slightly winged petioles ; 

 upper stem-leaves apparently opposite,! in pairs, one of each pair much the 

 smaller of the two ; less than those below, more truly ovate, rounded or subcordate 

 at base. Stipules none. Peduncles single-flowered, solitary, much shorter than 

 the leaves, terete, lax, drooping or decurved, very downy. Flowers nodding or 

 drooping, scentless. Calyx persistent, downy within and without, not half the 

 length of the corolla ; sepals ovate, acuminate, entire or with an occasional tooth 

 or lobe, 3-ribbed, unequal in length and 2 of them much broader than the rest, 

 widely spreading and enlarged in fruit. Corolla about 1 or \\ inch in length, 

 campanulate, downy, the tube very short, uucoloured, 5-lobed and 5-furrowed ; 

 limb somewhat ventricose, many-ribbed, dull muddy green externally, within gla- 

 brous, yellowish green at base checquered with bottle-green, the border in 

 5 broadly ovate, scarcely pointed, rather unequal, finally spreading segments, with 

 reflexed raargin.s, of a lurid dingy puiple, with which the whole anterior portion 

 of the limb is tinged and pencilled. Stamens included, inseited at the bottom of 

 the tube and adnate with the latter its whole length, where they are very hairy; 

 Jilaments glabrous in their free part, filiform, terete, their summits bent down- 

 wards ; anthers large, white, inverted by the prone curvature of the top of the fila- 

 ment, cordate by the separation of their lobes below, betwixt which the filament 

 is inserted, 2-celled, bursting laterally, glabrous ; pollen white, globose. Style 



* Dwale; I imagine from the Dutch, dwalen, to err, to go astray; or more 

 immediately from the obsolete verb to dwaule, to he delirious ; the loss of sense 

 and reason being the most prominent symptom induced by this poison. 



f I say here apparently, because they spring unilaterally from the stem and 

 not from its opposite sides. 



2 u 



