POTHOS FOETIDA; 



OR 



FETID POTHOS. 



1 he generality of these plants, inhabitants of South America, are parasitical, and growing at 

 the roots of trees, shoot their stems upwards to a considerable height, which at every joint pro- 

 duce fresh roots, extending like the Taenia,* and being voluble, attach themselves firmly to 

 their stems and branches, and by exhausting these of their sap, finally deprive them of life. 

 Our specimen, the Fetid Pothos, is an inhabitant of North America, and was introduced into 

 this country by Peter Collinson, in the year 1763, and it shews first its spatha, which is of 

 a yellow colour dashed with purple stripes, (the indications of poison), like an arum, inclosing 

 a short spadix, on which are placed chequer-wise the sessile flowers, each of which possesses four 

 stamina and one pistillum; hence it arranges under the Class Gynandria, Order Tetandria, 

 and vice versa, as respects our Reformed Sexual System. The leaves, which we need not men- 

 tion here, appear after the flowers. As the growth of its congeners is by rooting joints, so this 

 poisonous herb is amazingly extended by suckers, and thus the Fetid Pothos spreads over a 

 vast extent of bog, filling its whole atmosphere with poisonous exhalations, 



Placed where no nutmeg scents the vernal gales, 

 Nor towering plaintain shades the mid-day vales; 

 No grassy mantle hides the sable hills, 

 No flow'ry chaplet crowns the trickling rills ; 

 Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps 

 In russet tapestry o'er the crumbling steeps. 

 No step retreating, on the sand impress'd, 

 Invites the visit of a second guest ; 

 No refluent fin th' unpeopled stream divides, 

 No revolant pinion cleaves the airy tides ; 

 Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heath 

 Fell Pothos sits, the hydra-plant of death. 

 Lo ! from one root, th' envenom' d soil below, 

 A thousand vegetative serpents f grow; 

 With horrid look the Hooded Monster spreads 

 O'er ten square leagues his far-diverging heads; 

 Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form, 

 Looks o'er the clouds, and hisses to the storm. 

 Steep 'd in fell poison, as his sharp teeth part, 

 A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart ; 

 Snatch the proud Eagle towering o'er the heath, 

 Or pounce the Lion as he stalks beneath ; — 

 Here at his root two scion-demons dwell, 

 Breathe the faint hiss, or try the shriller yell; 

 Rise, flutt'ring in the air on callow wings, 

 And aim at insect-prey their lesser stings. 



Darwin. 



* So the lone Taenia, as he grows, prolongs 



His flattend form with young adherent throngs.— Darwin. 

 The Tape-worm dwells in the intestines of men and animals, and grows old at one extremity only, producing an infinite series of young 

 ones at the other; the separate joints have been called Gourd-worms, each of which possesses a mouth of its own, with organs of digestion. 

 These produce a dreadful emaciation of the body, from the quantity of chyle they rob the constitution of, and finally death. 



f This genus was anciently called Dracontium, from Draco, a dragon; and our specimen was named Dracontium toetidum. Vide 

 Miller's Dictionary, the charming edition of it, by Marty n. 





