LEGUMINOS 4-PAPILIONACEA. 375 
edible part.' With these nutritive principles is often found asso- 
ciated a deleterious acrid substance, sometimes narcotic, whose 
powers are usually destroyed by heat. This is to a slight extent 
the case with the fresh and raw ripe seeds of most Peas, Beans, 
Kidney-beans, &. Thus it is that those of Lathyrus Aphaca’ will 
produce headache and drowsiness. Those of the “ Liquorice-vine” 
(Fr., Liane-Réglisse’) and Anagyris fetida* are said to have this pro- 
perty to a yet higher degree. Cases are known where grave accidents 
have occurred through eating the seeds of several European kinds of 
Broom and Laburnum. It is probably for a similar reason that the 
flour of Ervum Ervilia, when mixed with that of cereals, gives 
bread a deleterious property. The seeds of several Leguminose are 
used in fishing to poison the game, and the leaves and bark are often 
preferred, as we shall see below; while the seeds of the Indigo 
plants are reputed as poisonous in warm countries. But this dan- 
gerous quality is nowhere so strongly marked as in the famous 
Calabar-bean,’ better known perhaps as Ordeal-bean (Fr., pozson 
d’épreuve), the seed of Physostigma venenosum,' from tropical Africa. 
The extract or the contained alkaloids* are well known as possessing 
the peculiar power of contracting the pupil of the eye. In many 
species the vegetative organs share these irritant or narcotic pro- 
perties with the seeds. The leaves of many species of Cytisus, 
Genista, Colutea, Coronilla, Robinia, Chitoria, Indigofera, Tephrosia, 
Ononis, Anthyllis, Abrus, Lonchocarpus, &c., are irritant, purgative, 
emetic,’ sometimes even vesicant, as in <Arthrolobium scorpioides. 
The shoots of Sadinea florida are poisonous.” In Australia cattle 
have suffered from browsing on several species of Gompholobium or 
1 The edible starchy matter accumulates 
pretty often in the roots, as in our Orobus tube- 
rosus Li. or Tuberous Bitter-vetch, Apios tuberosa 
and Psoralea esculenta Pursn, Fl. Bor.-Amer., 
ii. 275, t. 22;—DC., Prodr., ii. 219, n. 39, which 
has been suggested as a succedaneum to the 
potato, as also Pueraria tuberosa, &ec. 
2 L., Spec. 1029. A species remarkable for 
the almost constant abortion of the leaflets and 
the corresponding great development of its leafy 
stipules. 
3 Abrus precatorius L., Syst., 583.— Glycine 
Abrus L., Spec. 1025. (See H. By., in Dict. 
Eneycl. des Sc. Méd., i. 205.) 
4 This plant is also purgative. (See H. By., 
in Dict. Encycl. des Se. Méd., iv. 59.) 
5 L., Spec., 1040.—Vicia Ervilia W. (See 
Linpt., Veg. Kingd., 548.) 
8 Or Chop Bean; Eséré of the natives. 
7 Batr., in Trans. Soc. Edinb., xxii. 305.— 
Hansoury, in Pharm. Journ,, sér. 2, iv. 559; v. 
25.—FraseR, On the Char., Act., &e., of the 
ordeal Bean of Calabar (thes, Edinb., 1862).— 
J.C. Lopsez, Etude sur la Feve de Calabar 
(thése de Paris, 1864).—BucuEn, in Bot. Zeit. 
(1863), u. 47.—Rav., in Bull. Soc. Bot. de Fr., 
x. 538.—G. PL., in Gu1B., Drog. Simpl. ed. 6, 
iii. 380. 
8 Physostigmine and eserine (see Vin, Rech., 
Chim. et Phys., &c., thése de Paris, 1865). 
® Among others Genista purgans L. (Spec. 
999.—Spartium purgans L., Syst., 474); the 
False Senna of Egypt (Tephrosia Apollinea DC., 
Prodr., ii. 254, n.51); the False Senna of Popayan 
(P. Senna H. B. K., Nov. Gen. et Spec., vi. 458). 
10 Scuome., ex Linvu., Veg. Kingd., 548. 
