THE HERB PARIS — continued. 
very unlike that usual among Monocotyledons. Their non-lustrous surface and 
somewhat yellowish shade of green serve also to mask the true affinities of the plant. 
In the centre of the whorl of leaves rises the peduncle, slender, angular, erect, 
and from one to three inches long, terminating in the solitary flower. It is here that 
the remarkable symmetry of the plant is seen. Normally there are four sepals in a 
whorl so situated that they alternate with the four foliage-leaves, four petals 
alternating with the sepals, two whorls each of four stamens and four united carpels. 
If, however, there are five foliage-leaves all the floral whorls will also be in fives ; 
and it will be noticed that, like the venation and texture of the foliage-leaves, these 
numbers of floral organs are more Dicotyledonous than Monocotyledonous. Nor 
is it only in number that this symmetry shows itself : there is also a considerable 
resemblance in form between the parts of the four outer floral whorls. The sepals 
are nearly an inch long, very narrowly lanceolate, and tapering into a long point, 
green and persistent in the fruit stage. The petals are of the same length, so that 
when fully open the flower is nearly two inches in diameter ; but being narrower 
they are described as subulate rather than lanceolate, and they are yellow and also 
persist in the fruit stage. The stamens are of a remarkably similar form and colour, 
their filaments widening at a short distance from their bases, the anthers long, linear, 
and dorsifixed, and the connective prolonged from between the two anther-lobes 
into a long, tapering appendage, making the entire stamens about as long as the 
sepals and petals. 
The rounded superior ovary has four external lobes corresponding to its four 
chambers ; and four separate styles, shorter than the stamens, spread outwards from 
its summit, with downy stigmatic surfaces along the upper side of their extremities. 
The flowers produce no honey but have a strong putrescent smell, which, 
together, perhaps, with the colour of the ripening berry, which turns from reddish 
to an almost black purple, serves to attract flies. The flower is markedly protogynous, 
so that it is probably seldom self-pollinated. 
The solitary conspicuous blackish fruit, to which the plant owes its German 
name of Einbeere and an English equivalent, probably suggested to the early botanists 
that the plant had some affinity with the Deadly Nightshade and was, therefore, also 
likely to be dangerously narcotic. Caspar Bauhin (1671) calls it Solarium quadrifolium 
baccatum. Though this property has not been verified, the rhizome possesses a 
purgative character of, it is stated, about half the strength of Ipecacuanha. 
We are not surprised at these earlier workers being puzzled as to the relation- 
ship of this plant, especially before the similar but more attractive American genus 
Trillium had become familiar. 
Turner, following Fuchs, as he often does, classes it in his “ Names ”( 1 548) 
under Aconitum , mentioning its occurrence at his native Morpeth. He writes that it 
“is called Pardalianches, whiche we may call in engiishe Libardbayne or one bery. It is much in Northumberland in a wodde 
besyde Morpeth called Cottingwod. It hath foure leaues lyke vnto great plantaine, & in the ouermost top a litle blacke 
bery lyke a blacke morbery, but blacker & greater.” 
