OROBANCHACEiE. 



595 



IV. ATROPA. ATROPA. 



Calyx broadly campanulate, deeply 5-lobed. Corolla campanulate, 

 regular. Fruit a berry. 



A genus confined by some to the single European species, but ex- 

 tended by others to include several herbs or shrubs from warmer cli- 

 mates, of no interest to the British botanist. 



1. Deadly Atropa. Atropa Belladonna, Linn. (Fig. 710.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 592. Dwale.or Belladonna.) 



An erect, glabrous, or slightly dowoy 

 herb, with a perennial rootstock and 

 branching stem. Leaves stalked, rather 

 large, ovate and entire, with a smaller 

 one usually proceeding from the same 

 point, often so small as to look like a 

 stipule. Flowers solitary, on short pe- 

 duncles, in the forks of the stem or in 

 the axils of the leaves. Corolla pale 

 purplish-blue, nearly an inch long, with 

 5 broad, short lobes. Stamens shorter, 

 with distinct filaments. Berry rather 

 large, globular. 



In waste, stony places, in southern 

 Europe and west central Asia, extending 

 over central Europe, chiefly about old 

 castles and ruins. In Britain, it is only 

 found in similar localities in southern 

 England, and a few stations further 

 north, probably the remains of former cultivation. 



Fig. 710. 

 Fl. summer. 



LIIL BK00MBAPE FAMILY. OROBANCHACEJE. 



Herbs, of a brown or purplish colour, passing into yellow or 

 blue, but never green, always parasitical on the roots of other 

 herbs or shrubs ; the stems simple or rarely branched, erect, bear- 

 ing scales of the same colour instead of leaves, and a terminal 

 spike of flowers, each in the axil of a bract, similar to the scales of 

 the stem, and accompanied often by a pair of smaller bracts at the 



