I20 



THE HENBANE. 



Kev. E. a. WOODRUFFE peacock, F.L.S., 

 Cadney, Brigg. 



Mr. W. C. Hey's note on Hyoscycunus niger surprises me jiot 

 a little. Its infrequency in East Yorkshire is in my experience 

 of Lincolnshire most unusual. I have betw een fifty and sixty 

 localities for this species, on all kinds of rock-outcrop soils for 

 North and South Lincolnshire. Every division of the county is 

 represented, except i8th on the extreme south-east, which is 

 still badly worked for want of local help. It is a species which 

 is here this season, and then g-one for half a dozen, or even longer 

 in some cases. In my experience it is not in the least peculiar that 

 not a single seedling- appeared as the result of the West Ayton 

 plants blooming. Though I have watched a score of times 

 I have never known seedlings follow on such occasions. 

 Hyoscyamus is truly biennial, and as truly sporadic — i.e., its 

 seeds have to rest in the soil or elsewhere an uncertain time 

 before they will grow. After I had settled here in 1891 

 I received a collection of plants and notes from Mrs. E. Brown, 

 the widow of the late vicar. There was a Cadney specimen 

 among the dried plants, and also notes of its occurrence. But 

 I saw nothing of this species in my daily observation of the 

 flora of the Sandy Glacial Gravel, on which the village of Cadney 

 stands, till 1894. It could hardly have escaped observation so 

 long if it were present. Two people in the village took a 

 personal interest in botany and natural history, and to them 

 I applied. The late Mrs. Hannah Abbey, born in 1804, at once 

 replied : — ' Live here long enough and you'll see 'em often 

 enough, sir. The seeds can't grow till they've been buried 

 some years and are suddenly unhapped.' Standing by her 

 cottage door she pointed across the road with her stick to 

 a shaded hedge bank and said : — ' On yon bank, before Smith's 

 drainage was put down, there was a little spring called ''the 

 Jinny Pot Well," and the Henbane has grown there any time 

 these sixty years ; but it was never there wiien you wanted it 

 for toothache — unless you'd got the seeds when it was there ! 

 If you live here long enough, an' they cut that old hedge back, 

 you'll see it yourself with your own eyes. What's more an' all, 

 there is another plant like it, but not the same. It may come 

 year after year for years, and then go for years, and if you stay 

 here you'll see it as well. I calls it 'Joe Maunders ' ; and it's a 

 large yellow flower with a red centre o' hairs.' This unexpected 

 piece of information was more than I could explain. Datura, 



Naturalist, 



