HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



83 



whose] scarlet berries have certainly a very tempting 

 appearance, there is no poisonous plant to whose 

 questionable attractions children would readily fall 

 victims, for even their inveterate curiosity would 

 scarcely lead them to experiment upon hemlock or 

 foxglove, at any rate in their own persons. Yet, 

 although the species usually regarded as British 

 poisonous plants, are neither numerous nor very 

 common, if we except those of the Umbellate family, 

 many tribes contain species that are more or less 

 poisonous, it being rather a question of the intensity 

 of certain noxious properties than their entire absence, 

 and families that are known to be distinctly poisonous 

 in other parts of the world may well be looked upon 

 here with suspicion, and treated accordingly. 



The Euphorbiacea:, a very poisonous tribe in 

 warmer countries, is represented in our flora by 

 species too insignificant to be injurious in any marked 

 degrees. 



The Leguminoseae, again, areas a whole (according 

 to Lindley) to be reckoned poisonous, and strange 

 though it may seem, those species that form such 

 important articles of food for man and animals as 

 the pulse and fodder plants are just so many excep- 

 tions to the rule, yet amongst our native species 

 there are none that are injurious. It would appear 

 that the active principles of plants gain or lose in 

 intensity according to the climate in which they 

 naturally grow, and for this reason plants whose 

 home is in warm and tropicardimates where light as 

 well as heat is so much stronger than with us, are 

 characterised by more powerful secretions, whether 

 for good or evil ; their flowers are more strongly- 

 scented, and their fruits are more full of flavour and 

 sweetness than ours. It is said that when such 

 plants are grown in our hothouses, their peculiar 

 properties suffer considerable diminution, the reason 

 being chiefly that the light, that all-important factor 

 in the production of secretions, is so much less intense 

 than in their native habitats. Many powerful poisons 

 are to be found in the Figwort order (Scrophularineae-), 

 but with the exception of Digitalis and Scrophularia 

 our native plants are probably harmless. 



Our truly poisonous plants are met with principally 

 in the Orders Ranunculacea;, Umbellifera;, Solanacece. 

 To begin with the Ranunculacea? ; — all the plants of 

 this family are full of an acrid principle, but Ranun- 

 culus acris is specially distinguished by name for the 

 virulence of its blistering sap. Though it abounds in 

 rich pastures, and is popularly supposed to impart its 

 own deep yellow to the butter produced by the cows 

 grazing there, it is really left entirely alone by them, 

 and with reason, for it is the most acrid plant of the 

 genus ; yet its injurious properties are dissipated 

 when it is dried with the hay. 



Anemone nemorosa is also refused by both horses 

 and cows because of its acrid juice ; but goats, who 

 seem able to find "good in everything," eat it, as do 

 sheep, though it sometimes disagrees with them. 



But how much wider is the discretion exercised by 

 animals than that of human beings in respect of what 

 is good and wholesome for food. Cows, as we have 

 seen, eschew the tempting golden buttercups; and 

 animals, especially in a wild state, are able, in virtue 

 of their wonderful gift of instinct, to feed unharmed 

 amongst vegetation that would cause injury, or even 

 death to them if they partook of it. Their instinct 

 seems to lead them unquestioningly to refuse the evil 

 and choose the good ; while man, with his higher 

 endowment of reason and intelligence, must perforce 

 prove all things by experience before he can be 

 satisfied as to their character. The instinct of 

 domesticated animals, however, does not always 

 serve them as an unerring guide, or we should not 

 hear now and then of cattle and horses being 

 poisoned by eating the foliage of the yew, or the 

 leaves of the more deadly cowbane. 



But to return. The two Hellebores have no very 

 good repute, though once accounted specifics for 

 madness. Their generic name comes to us from the 

 Greek, and though the species that was accounted 

 poisonous by the'ancients is not included in our flora, 

 the two that are must be looked upon with suspicion. 

 But the poisonous plant par excellence of the Ranun- 

 culus family is Aconitum napellus. It was considered 

 by the ancients as the most prompt of all poisons, 

 one indeed that 



" Swift as quicksilver, courses through 

 The natural gates and alleys of the body." 



Its generic name is thought to have been derived 

 from aconitos, without a struggle, while napellus 

 alludes to the form of the roots. Its popular appella- 

 tion of wolfsbane indicates its virulent nature, as it 

 was formerly used to poison wolves, by scattering or 

 sprinkling the acrid juice over pieces of raw flesh. 

 The whole plant, but especially the root, is poisonous, 

 and deaths have frequently occurred through the 

 latter being mistaken for horse-radish, though the 

 two bear little resemblance to each other. The 

 singular flower of A. napellus, not inappropriately 

 named monkshood or friar's-cap, is known to all who 

 possess a garden. We have probably been familiar 

 from childhood with the appearance of the overarching 

 sepals that form the " hood," and with the long- 

 stalked nectaries into which the hindmost petals are 

 transformed, for what child does not love to discover 

 the pair of doves yoked to the pretty chariot within ? 

 The rootstock of A. napellus is black, and shaped 

 something like that of a carrot. By the way, does 

 Keats's epithet, "tight-rooted," refer to the hard 

 texture of the root, or to the tenacity with which it 

 holds to the ground ? 



"Go not to Lethe, neither twist 

 Wolfsbane, tight rooted, for its poisonous wine." 



One may well inquire what it is that makes this 

 plant such a deadly, acrid poison, and how and why 

 some plants form out of the elements that are the 



