k 
ON PLANTS IN RELATION TO ANIMALS. 721 
fleshy roots of which have been occasionally used by mistake 
for horseradish, and produced fatal results. 
This plant has a stem about three feet in height, with 
dark-green glossy leaves, deeply divided in a palmate 
manner; the flowers are placed in erect clusters, and are of 
a dull-blue colour; the roots or, more properly, rootstocks, 
are of a tapering form, of a dark-brown colour externally, 
and white internally. The younger roots, which are placed 
on either side of the older one, are of a lighter colour. The 
taste is bitter at first, but after a time numbness and tingling 
of the lips and tongue are perceived. The root has none of 
the acridity or pungency that fresh horseradish possesses. 
The two plants are so dissimilar that it would seem impossible 
so terrible a mistake should be made, but it has generally 
arisen from taking the root of the aconite when the leaves 
and flowers, which are so unmistakable, have died away. 
The rootstock of the horseradish is much larger than that 
of the aconite, of a tapering form, dirty yellow externally, 
and the top or crown marked with transverse scars, indicat¬ 
ing the position of the old leaves ; its odour and taste are at 
first pungent and acrid. The venom of the aconite appears 
to depend upon the presence of an alkaloid called aconitine, 
which is so extremely poisonous that so small a dose as one- 
fiftieth part of a grain has well-nigh produced fatal results. 
A tincture of aconite root, or a solution of the alkaloid, is 
occasionally used with much success as an application to 
relieve rheumatic pains, but it should be employed with the 
greatest caution.* 
4. Pceom'a, so named in honour of the physician Pason, 
who is said to have cured Pluto with it of a wound re¬ 
ceived from Hercules. The specific name is from the colour 
of the petals. 
The P. corallina is well known from the double examples 
so common to the garden. It the wild state it has five 
large, rounded, red or scarlet petals. 
It is found on the Steep Holmes, a small island in the 
Severn Sea, perhaps the only really wild habitat in Britain. 
At one time it was abundant on this exposed rock, but it 
is yearly getting scarcer, and threatens to be annihilated in 
a short time. 
The plant was formerly extolled for many virtues, and 
there can be no doubt but that it possesses the usual stimu¬ 
lative and anodyne qualities of so many of the order. At 
present its only use seems to be in the formation of anodyne 
LII. 
# The ‘ Treasury of Botany,’ 
51 
