18 
trance. There is a story of a Tailor who for fifteen hours 
could not speak, and knew nothing of what went on 
round him, though he moved his lips, and sewed with his 
fingers. It is said that a whole army of the Danes were 
once poisoned by the Scots with an infusion of the deadly 
night shade. It has the strange power of enlarging the 
pupil of the eye, when applied externally. 
“The herb that expands man’s eye to the light, 
The fair lady who leads to the shades of night.” 
Is of the same genus as the mandrake which grows more 
to the south, and used to be supposed to scream when it 
was pulled up from the g-round. 
There is more to be said in favour of the Solanum tribe, — 
our own two native sorts, the bitter sweet or WOODY 
NIGHT SHADE (PI. XXI), with purple flowers and red 
berries and the GARDEN NIGHTSHADE (PI. XXIII) 
with white flowers and purple berries are indeed very 
poisonous, but this genus likewise includes the potato, 
and the capsicum, the love apple, and other plants that 
are often eaten in other countries though some portions 
of them all are noxious. 
On the whole, a long acquaintance is needed before any one 
can venture to meddle with any of these plants of the 
rule of five, with the superior germ, and alternate leaves. 
The race with many stamens growing on the germ are not 
more to be trusted, and here is one of them, pi. XXI 
(fig. a) called the MONKSHOOD, for the sake of the 
upper leaf of the calyx which is purple, and folded over 
the two upper petals just like a little cowl, under which 
the green germ peeps. — It is a handsome plant, often 
found in gardens, but full of acrid poison, raising blisters 
if the juice touches a wound in the skin, and bringing on 
sleep if taken inwardly. 
Next follow the umbellate flowers, the evil brethren of our 
wholesome garden plants of this order, each of which 
seems to have a wild, noxious unreclaimed likeness — 
the first is FOOLS PARSLEY, XXII b, which has pretty 
delicate leaves more graceful than the garden kind, but 
without the pleasant smell, and though no one would 
wish to eat it, not likely to cause much mischief. The 
wild parsnip, carrot and celery, and the fool’s water cress 
are much more dangerous. Hemlocks in South America 
furnish food, but we have none but a very mischievous 
sort, the tall wild HEMLOCK, XXIII a, a large handsome 
plant, with a round hollow stem, thickly spotted with 
purple, and leaves whose footstalks begin by embracing 
the stem, and are like it spotted. The leaves are deep 
green and shining, the capsules ridged — 
“Do not chew the hemlock rank 
Growing on the weedy bank” 
has always been the advice of the nursery rhyme to the 
cow, who needs it very little, for the taste of the leaves 
is quite enough to prevent cow or man from eating them, 
although little boys do contrive to make a musical instru¬ 
ment of the hollow stem, quite capable of emitting frig'ht- 
ful sounds. 
PLATE XXIV. THE WATER HEMLOCK or cow bane is 
fortunately not very common, for it is deadly poison to 
cows, althoug’h horses and pigs seem to be able to eat it 
with safety. It is a more slender plant than the common 
hemlock, and generally grows in marshy pools. The root 
is curiously divided by bars with a hollow space between 
them. 
THE DROPWORTS (c) and ( d ) are some of the most noxious 
of the umbellate flowers — water always seems to be 
food for poison in this race, and these are most dangerous 
plants. Some years since 17 convicts at Woolwich dug 
up and ate the roots of one of the dropworts, four died, 
and all the rest suffered considerably. They are large 
handsome plants, with graceful leaves and long styles, 
which hang on even after the fruit is ripe and give an 
ornamental appearance. 
The SPURGE kind are exceedingly strange flowers, of which 
we have many wild sorts, as little specimens of the extra¬ 
ordinary forms which they present in tropical countries. 
Their flowers are in heads, one large bare fertile flower divi¬ 
ded into three, standing up in the middle, and a number 
of small barren flowers, each with a single stamen stan¬ 
ding on little stems round it all in one involucre, and 
quite green, all but the anthers, which in some kinds are 
moon shaped. Some foreign sorts are woody, and covered 
with thorns, others are herbaceous, but all possess a 
quantity of milky juice that gushes out wherever the 
plant is wounded, and is very acrid. It is the hardened 
milk of the great caoutchouc spurge which affords us 
that material put to so many strange uses. — Indian 
rubber, but our present concern is with a plant often 
found in gardens and sometimes wild, and very curious 
it is, with its straight stem, and pairs of pointed oppo¬ 
site green leaves, growing so regularly, and the bran¬ 
ching head bearing the involucres of two opposite leaves, 
and the great threefold carpel, with a seed in each 
division — every morsel of it when gathered teeming 
with drops of white milk, looking tempting but which 
would instantly blister any sore on the skin. It is cal¬ 
led in Cottage gardens, Jacob’s ladder, from its regular 
growth — in America it is known as Moleplant, because 
it is said that Moles never burrow where it grows, and 
in other places it is called caper spurge, because the 
germs after long soaking in salt and water, and vinegar 
to destroy the acridity, are often pickled and used as 
capers. So by going through the poisonous races we find 
that even the plants full of deadly juice are not to be 
looked on merely as enemies, but more as friends who may 
help us in time of need, though they may not be lightly ap¬ 
plied to. So true it is that nothing has been made in vain. 
Some of the brightest freshest green we see in the spring 
in copses and by hedge sides is furnished by the HERB 
MERCURY, with its polished leaves, and spikes of green 
flowers. The plants are barren and fertile, the first having 
green three-parted corollas, containing from nine to twelve 
stamens, the fertile ones a rough two lobed germ, sup¬ 
porting two styles. They grow up from a creeping root, 
in great profusion and have a friendly spring like look, but 
they are dangerous to sheep, and it is said that a whole 
family were poisoned by eating some fried with bacon. 
A little later in the year when all the flowering trees burst 
out in a flush of gay colouring, no bloom is more sun¬ 
shiny than the pale golden tresses of the LABURNUM 
(PLATE XXV c), drooping in a profusion of graceful 
streamers, seeming' to smile with light, and forming a most 
glorious network under which to stand and look up into 
the deep blue sky of early summer. Golden chains is 
the peasant’s name for it, and it is a great pity it is not 
usually so called, for the word Laburnum is only a cor¬ 
ruption of L’AUBOURS, or L’ARC BOIS, bowwood, as it 
is called by the peasants of Switzerland and Dauphine. 
— The wood is almost as good for bows as the yew, for 
it is very hard and elastic, light coloured outside but very 
dark near the heart, and it is much used for inlaying and 
ornamental work. 
The flowers are of the papilionaceous or butterfly form, with 
a beauteous little dark brown pattern on the standard, 
the leaves are trefoils, the seeds grow in pods, and are 
very black and hard. If eaten they cause violent sickness, 
and it is said that Bees will not settle on the floweTS, but 
hares and rabbits have unfortunately no such objection 
to the bark, nor snails to the leaves, and amongst all 
these enemies, the poor young laburnum is apt to be 
killed by the loss either of its coat or of its lungs. — 
But the seeds grow so easily on falling into the ground 
that there is little danger that we shall ever be without 
the glory of our Laburnum bowers. It is native to south- 
ren Europe where the Italians call it Maggio or May as 
we do the Hawthorn, but it is very hardy and can be 
cultivated far to the North. 
It is not at all common with the Butterfly race of flowers to 
be unwholesome, but this pretty YELLOW VETCHLING 
(6), and indeed all the Lathyrus race must be convicted 
of having seeds unwholesome to man, and likely to cause 
violent headache and sickness if eaten. The herbage is 
however not injurious to cattle, and few of our wild 
plants are so beautiful as the little crimson vetchling, 
or the deep purple vetchling that climbs up by its long 
tendrils, and forms bowers with purple and green cano¬ 
pies where we might fancy the fairy Queen holding her 
court. 
No one would wish for prettier bowers than those formed by 
the Bryony or Wild vine, white and black (PLATE XXVI) 
not that they are at all nearly related. — You may know 
them even when they are out of blossom by the smooth 
glazed heart shaped leaves of the BLACK BRYONY (£>), 
