Datura.] solanaceje. 333 



flattened, adnate to the tute and pubescent, their upper free half quite glabrous ; 

 anthers erect, slightly hairy, cream-coloured, narrowly elliptical, flat, bursting all 

 along their thin lateral margins ; pollen white, globular. Style terete, glabrous, 

 compressed and clavate at summit ; stigma papillose-glandulose, decurrent, nec- 

 tarilerous. Ovary conical, faintly 2—4 lobed, ecbinate with the nascent spines of 

 the fruit. Capsule ovoid, ecbinate with strong, tapering, sharp and very unequal 

 spines, pubescent when green, subtended by the large, persistent and dellexed 

 base of the calyx. 



A plant or two of Stramonium is commonly seen in the cottager's garden, as 

 being much in request for asthma. Smoked like tobacco, it often gives imme- 

 diate relief, but must be used with circumspection. 



£>. Stramonium is usually stated in books to be of American origin, and natu- 

 ralized in Europe, but there is every reason for believing this to be a mistake, and 

 that the plant, if not indigenous to our quarter of the globe, came to us from the 

 Eiibt, where both it and some other species are well known. In America it is 

 common, but only in the same situations as in Europe ; the idea therefore of its 

 importation from the New World is a gratuitous assumption unsupported by evi- 

 dence, and contrary to probability when we consider the oriental derivation of its 

 generic name in so many Arabic dialects, and are aware how much the species 

 increase in number and frequency as we advance eastward. The same opinion is 

 expressed by Prof. Bigelow in his ' Jledical Botany of the United States.' It is 

 also mentioned as of eastern origin by Tabernaemontanus (see Tabern. JKrauterb. 

 edit. C. Bauhin. Frankfort, 16 — ). Gerarde tells us that he received seed of the 

 Thornapple, which was a scarce plant in England in his time, from Constantino- 

 ple, an additional presumption that the species is of eastern, not western, origin. 

 In Hungary it is a pestilent weed, choking the soil as Mercurialis annua does in 

 England. I have seen it lining the roadside for miles between Vienna and 

 Buda. 



I have reason to believe D. Stramonium to be the Jamestown weed mentioned 

 by Abbot in that elegant but not always, as regards nomenclature, correct work, 

 the ' Insects of Georgia,' the blossoms of which are so attractive to Sphinx Caro- 

 lina. In August, 1796, n pair of these fine insects were taken by a Mr. Thom- 

 son atW. Cowes, and a fig. of one of them given by Mr. Curtis in his splendid work, 

 the ' British Entomology.' Datura is closely allied to the Tobacco, on which this 

 Sphinx is said principally to feed. 



The American botanists themselves do not consider the Thornapple as origi- 

 nally native to their soil, and indeed its popular name of Jamestown weed (cor- 

 rupted into Jimson) furnishes pretty conclusive evidence of its migration to the 

 northern section of the Union from one of the oldest colonial settlements in Vir- 

 ginia. It and the purple-stemmed var. (D. Ta^uZo* of authors) quite cover the 

 vacant lots and waste places of New York and Philadelphia, as if purposely sown 

 for medical use ; farther North than these cities I observed it to become gradually 

 scarcer, and hardly to be seen in any part of Lower Canada that I visited. 



I found at St. Thomas (Virgin Islands), in April, 1844, a species of Datura 

 with pale stems and flowers, and the general appearance of .D. Stramonium, but 

 essentially difi'ering in its much larger and I think more densely muricated cap- 

 sules, which were not ovate but hemispherical, or having their greatest diameter 

 at the base itself. Besides the seed, these capsules contained abundance of a 

 watery juice, and, although on being gathered, with a view of raising plants on 

 my return to England, they were kept perfectly dry on board the vessel, the seeds 



* In September, 1845, 1 remarked a single plant of D. Tatula in a cottager's gar- 

 den at Newbridge, but whether spontaneous there, or purposely introduced, I am 

 unable to say. It is a much larger plant, sufi'used with purple in its stems and 

 flowers, common in the South-east of Europe and the United States, and is con- 

 sidered by many as a mere variety of the present species, but, as the point is not 

 settled, and that variety, if such it be, is unknown in England, I have not mixed 

 up its description with that of the commoner plant, as constituting but one 

 genuine species. 



