LOGANIACEiE. 4(59 



greenish-white flowers, in axillary or terminal corymbs, and are often 

 fragrant. It is the most virulently poisonous group of plants known, con- 

 taining besides the Nux Vomica, the Upas and Wourali, two of the most 

 active and rapidly deleterious agents yet discovered. 



S. nux vomica, Linn. — Stem arborescent, without spines or tendrils. Leaves ovate» 

 petiolate, three or five-nerved, smooth. Corymbs terminal. Calyx with five short teeth- 

 Corolla glabrous within. Fruit a many-seeded berry. 



Linn., Sp. PL 271 ; Woodville, ii. 222 ; Roxburgh, Coromand. i. 8 ; Ste- 

 phenson and Churchill, i. 52 ; Lindley, Flor. Med. 528. 



Common Names. — Poison Nut ; Nux vomica. 



Foreign Names. — Noix vomique, Fr. ; Noce canina, It. ; Krahenaugen, 

 Ger.; Koochla, Hind.; Luzalke, Arab. 



Description. — A middle-sized tree, with a short, crooked, 

 thickish trunk, irregularly branched, and covered with a Fig. 211. 



smooth, ash-coloured bark. The leaves are opposite, on 

 short petioles, ovate, shining, smooth on both sides, entire, 

 three to five-nerved. The flowers are small, greenish- 

 white, and collected into small, terminal cymes, with 

 a disagreeable odour. The calyx is 5-toothed and decidu- 

 ous. The corolla is of a greenish-white, and divided into 

 five segments. The stamens are five, very short, with 

 roundish anthers. The ovary is superior, roundish, and 

 crowned with a single style, as long as the corolla. The 

 fruit is a berry, of the size of an orange, globular, covered 

 with a smooth, hard rind, of a deep-yellow, and filled with 

 a pulp, in which are five seeds ; these are flat, round, with 

 a prominence in the centre, of a grayish colour externally, 

 and covered with a woolly matter, but internally hard and S. nux vomica, 



tough, like horn. 



It is a native of the East Indies, and is very common on the coast of Coro- 

 mandel, where it flowers in the cold season. It appears to have been intro- 

 duced into practice by the Arabian physicians, who probably obtained their 

 knowledge of it from the Hindoos. The plant spoken of by Dioscorides and 

 Pliny, under the name of Strychnos, was a kind of nightshade. The seeds 

 are the officinal part, but the bark has attracted some attention under the 

 name offalse (ingustura, and was falsely attributed to a species of Brucea. 



The seeds are round, peltate, less than an inch in diameter, nearly flat, or 

 convex on one side, and concave on the other, and surrounded by narrow 

 annular striae. They have two coats ; the outer is simple, fibrous, and covered 

 with short, silky hairs, of a gray or yellowish colour ,• within this is the inner 

 coat, which is very thin. The nucleus is formed of the albumen and embryo; 

 the first is bipartite, cartilaginous, or horny, of a dirty-white colour, and an 

 intensely bitter taste ; the embryo is white, in the centre of the seed. They 

 have been analyzed by several chemists ; the most complete examination of 

 them is that by Pelletier and Caventou. (A?in. Chim. et Phys. xii. 142.) 

 They found : Igasuric acid, in combination with Strychnia and Brucia, Wax, 

 Oil, Gum, &c. The two alkaloids are the active and poisonous principles, and 

 are very similar in their effects, but the first is the most energetic. 



The bark is in quills or flat pieces, more compact and heavy than true an- 

 gustura. The external appearance varies, being sometimes of a fungoid or 

 spongy, rust- coloured appearance, at others, covered with whitish prominences. 

 The taste is intensely bitter, and the colour of the powder of a yellowish- 

 white. It was at first imported into Hamburgh, and sold as angustura bark ; 

 but some cases of poisoning resulting from its administration, the sale of it 



