ON THE VARIETIES OP HYOSCYAMUS. 
307 
ART. L.— ON THE VARIETIES OF HYOSCYAMUS. 
By Jonathan Pereira, M.D., F.R.S., &c. 
In the Pharmaceutical Journal of August 1, 1842, is a com- 
munication from Mr. Houlton, on the annual and biennial 
Hyoscyamus niger, from which I gather that he suspects 
them to be distinct species, as he says " I am not at present 
able to determine the botanical relation of the annual to the 
true Hyoscyamus niger," 
Having carefully examined both plants, I have no hesita- 
tion in declaring them to be one and the same species — an 
opinion which I have expressed in the 2d edition of my "Ele- 
ments of Materia Medica and Therapeutics" vol. ii, 
p. 1222. The biennial variety is larger, stronger, and more 
branched than the annual one. In the Botanical Magazine, 
2394, is a drawing of the latter, which the editor regards as a 
variety of Hyoscyamus niger. Both varieties have long been 
used in medicine and are cultivated at Mitcham; but their 
relative degree of power has yet to be ascertained. 
It is curious to observe the different statements of botanists 
as to the duration of Henbane. Linnaeus, Alston, Bergius, 
B. I. Andrew Murray, Persoon, Woodville, Lindley, and the 
editors of the Beschreibung officineller Pflanzen declare it 
to be biennial; whereas, Hudson, Withering, Smith, Hooker 
Richard, A. T. Thomson, and the editors of the Handbuch- 
der medicinisch-pharmaceutischen Botanik state it to be 
annual. It is remarkable that, in the two works just quoted 
(the Beschreibung and Handbuch,) of both of which the 
late celebrated Professor T. F. L. Nees von Esenbeck was 
part editor, the duration of this plant is so differently stated. 
Loudon, Geiger, and I. L. Wheeler declare, correctly as I 
believe, that the Hyoscyamus niger is both annual and bien- 
nial; and in a letter which I received some months since from 
VOL. VIII. — NO. IV. 
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