Hyoseyamus.] solanace^. 331 



Old quarry by Morton house, near Brading. Morton farmyarrl, very abundantly, 

 Dr. Bell-Saher. Near the hotel (Fisher's ?) at Ventiior ; and at Si. 'Lawrence, in 

 plenty, Mr. W. D. Snooke. On a waste spot of ground by the roadbide between 

 Bembridge and Yaverland, W. Wilson Saunders, Esq. [At the foot of Bembiidge 

 down, near Yaverland farm, Dr. Bell-Sailer, Edrs.] 



W. Med. — On the shingle at Freshwater Gate, and very large and abundant 

 on the shore a little W. of Norton, and on the flagstaff-mound at the preventive- 

 station. Along the beach in Thorness bay, frequent, far from any houses. At 

 Brook, also frequent. Near the Blackgang hotel. Plentiful about Compton 

 farm. On Buccombe down. Field between Bakerwood and Dewcombe cop- 

 pices. At the foot of Moltislon down, on the S. side. 



A stout bushy plant, 2—4 feet high, thickly clothed with soft clammy hairs, 

 exhaling a strong, heavy, narcotic odour much like that of the black Currant, dis- 

 agreeable to most persons, and extremely oppressive and injurious to some consti- 

 tutions. * Root thick, white and fleshy, fusiform, with us, as it mostly but 

 not always is, biennial, though Smith and Hooker make it annual. Stem erect, 

 rounded, much branched, almost woody. Leaves soft and pliant, unctuous to the 

 touch, dull green, strongly veined, radical ones on semicylindrical petioles, trian- 

 gulari-ovate, spreading on the ground ; stem-leaves alternate, sessile, semiamplexi- 

 caul ; both deeply sinuato-dentale or subbipinnatifid, with sharp, spreading, lobe- 

 like teeth. Flowers nearly sessile, secund, produced in succession at the end of 

 the recurved leafy clusters of ripening capsules, which elongate with the growth 

 of the branches to 18 inches or upwards, bearing buds, blossoms and seeds in 

 all states of maturity until nearly the close of summer. Calyx pitcher-shaped, 

 downy, closely embracing the seed-vessel, strongly ribbed with a connecting net- 

 work of prominent veins, contracted beneath the fuimel-shaped limb, whose mar- 

 gin is 5-cleft, the segments broadly triangular, erect, with a sharp bard point. 

 Corolla funnel-shaped, hairy, large and handsome, the limb in 5 unequal rounded 

 lobes, pale whitish or straw-yellow, beautifully pencilled with dark reticulations 

 and a veining of rich purple in the throat. Stamens inserted on the tube, une- 

 qual and a little declined, hairy a great part of their length ; anthers violet, burst- 

 ing laterally, ovate, compressed, 2-celled. Style round, smooth, purplish ; stigma 

 roundish, flat and hairy, with a depression in the centre. Capsules suberect, in 

 long, unilateral, alternately 2-ranked clusters, closely protected by the excessively 

 rigid almost prickly calyx, ovate, thin and membranous, veined, truncate at top 

 where the capsule is curiously fitted with an oval lid or valve of a strong elastic 

 texture, somewhat 2-lobed and crowned with the remains of the stigma : this lid 

 separates when the seed is ripe, and no doubt serves to defend them from the rain 

 or dew which may lodge in the erect and cnp-like calyx-limb ; placenta, triangu- 

 lar, not reaching to tlie bottom of the capsule, formed by a reduplication of the 

 dissepiments, to which they are at right angles. Seeds numerous, kidney-shaped, 

 grayish, much compressed, beautifully covered with angular reticulations, the 

 interstices forming deep cellular excavations sparkling here and there with bril- 

 liant metallic and prismatic colours. 



When growing on the plant and nearly ripe, I have been struck by the general 

 resemblance of the capsules to clusters of filberts in their leafy involucres, a 

 remark which has been made by others on first seeing them ; and when divested 

 of their calycine covering these seed-vessels, with their lids, still more exactly 

 represent a now somewhat old-fashioned form of cast-iron pot or boiler, the bow 

 handle and three short legs being alone wanting to make the imitation perfect. 



The seeds of the Henbane, like those of the Poppy, are replete with a fixed oil, 

 said to be devoid of the narcotic quality of the rest of the plant. 



Henbane is occasionallv found naturalized iu America, but is rare in that 



* The Rev. K. W. Sibthorp related to me that himself and a friend, on gather- 

 ing this plant near Tattersall, in Lincolnshire, were both aifected with nausea and 

 tremor," from which the former soon recovered, but his friend remained seriously 

 indisposed until the following day, from the narcotic efHuvium. 



