I 
Mandrake. 
(RARITY.) 
“The fleshly mandrake’s stem, 
That shrieks when plucked at night.” 
Moore. 
UR ancestors attributed all kinds of wonderful properties 
to the Mandrake; and, even now, in the countries of 
which it is a native, it is deemed typical of all kinds of dread¬ 
ful things. There appears to be, however, some little doubt 
as to what plant the ancients really meant when they spoke 
of the mandragora , and to which they ascribed such marvel¬ 
lous virtues; but, at all events, it is certain that the root that 
passes under that name in England, and which—in order to 
gratify the superstitious fancies of the ignorant—quacks con¬ 
trive to contort into some resemblance to the human form, is 
only the briony, the veritable emblem of rarity , growing no 
nearer than the south of Europe. 
Amongst Oriental races the mandrake, probably on account 
of its foetid odour and venomous properties, is regarded with 
intense abhorrence; the Arabs, Richardson says, call it “ the 
devil’s candle,” because of its shiny appearance in the night; 
a circumstance thus alluded to by Moore in his “Lalla Rookh: 
“ Such rank and deadly lustre dwells, 
As in those hellish fires that light 
The mandrake’s charnel leaves at night. 
There is an old, deeply-rooted superstition connected with 
this ominous plant, which we have reason to believe is not yet 
altogether eradicated from the minds of the uneducated, that 
the mandrake grows up under the gallows, being nourished by 
the exhalations from executed criminals ; and that when it is 
pulled out of the ground it utters lamentable cries, as if pos¬ 
sessed of sensibility : 
