ON POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF HOMERIA COLL1NA. 361 
POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF HOMERIA COLLINA. 
(Nat. Ord. Iridece.) 
Homeria collina, Sweet. Root a corm or tuberous bulb, cover- 
ed with a fibrous reticulated, hardened coat. Shaft erect, smooth, 
paniculately branched. Branches 2-3 flowered. Spathe 2-valved, 
awned. Radical-leaf strap-shaped, narrow, caudate, concave, 
abruptly pointed, outreaching the shaft. Cauline leaves 2-3 much 
.smaller. Corolla ephemerous, of a yellow or vermilion color. 
I introduce this plant (which is known to almost every child in 
the colony as the Cape Tulip) not for its therapeutical use, but for 
its obnoxiousness. The poisonous qualities of its bulbs appear to 
have been known to some extent years ago, but, judging from the 
rapidity with which death ensued in a recent case, when they had 
been eaten by mistake, it must be of a very poisonous kind. To 
Doctor Laing, Police Surgeon of Cape Town, I am indebted for 
the particulars of a melancholy case of poisoning, caused by this 
bulb. 
A Malay woman, somewhat advanced in years, with her three 
grand-children, respectively of the ages of 12, 8, 6, partook on 
the 18th September last (1850) of a supper, consisting of coffee, 
fish, and rice, and ate along with this, a small basinful of the bulbs 
of the Homeria collina. The exact quantity which each ate is not 
well known. They appear to have supped between 7 and 8, and re- 
tired to bed at 9 o'clock, apparently in good health. 
About one in the morning, the old woman awoke, with severe 
nausea, followed by vomiting, and found the children similarly af- 
fected. She endeavored to call for assistance, but found herself 
too weak to leave her bed ; and when, at five o'clock, assistance 
arrived, the eldest girl was found moribund, and expired almost 
immediately. The little boy of eight years died an hour after- 
wards, and the youngest child was found in a state of collapse, al- 
most insensible, with cold extremities, pulse scarcely 50 and irre- 
gular, pupils much dilated. The symptoms of the grandmother 
were nearly similar, but in a lesser degree, accompanied by con- 
stant efforts at vomiting. By using diffusible stimulants she and 
this child eventually recovered. 
The body of the eldest child was examined twelve hours after 
death. Marks of intense gastritis were found, particularly about 
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