308 
ON THE VARIETIES OF HYOSCYAMUS. 
Sir W. J. Hooker, he says the niger " ought to be marked 
'annual or biennial.'' " 
Hyoscyamus niger differs not only in its duration (annual 
or biennial,) but also in the simple or branched condition of 
its stem, in the depth to which the leaves are incised, in being 
more or less hairy, in its flowers being sessile or subsessile, 
and in its corolla being either more or less strongly marked 
with violet veins, or even entirely yellow. In consequence 
of this, some botanists have been led to describe varieties of 
H. niger as distinct species. Thus the H. agrestis of Kitai- 
bel, and the H. pallidus of the same botanist are merely va- 
rieties of niger* I am supported in this statement by the high 
authority of Sir W. J. Hooker, who tells me that he has, in 
his Herbarium, native specimens of both H. agrestis and 
pallidus, and he has no "hesitation in saying, that they are 
identical with H. niger." Moreover, Brandt and Ratzeburg, 
in their Deutschlands phanerogamische Giftgewiich.se (p. 60,) 
observe: "From our examination of Kitaibel's original speci- 
mens in Willdenow's Herbarium, as well as from our obser- 
vations of numerous plants of black henbane during their 
whole development from seeds, we are led to regard H. agres- 
tis as a variety merely of H. niger. The distinguishing cha- 
racters assigned, by different authors, to the former, are all 
found in the latter plant. H. niger is a true annual. It oc- 
curs small and large, as well as with or without a branching 
stem. Both the radical and lower cauline leaves are inva- 
riably stalked ; the middle cauline ones are broader or nar- 
rower, ovate or oblong, with larger or smaller teeth. The 
flowers have shorter or longer stalks. The uppermost cauline 
leaves are always more or less entire. Lastly, on the same 
plant we find variations in the intensity of the color of the 
corolla. So that of the characters distinguishing H. agrestis, 
as given by Schultes, Roth, Mertens, Koch, Bluff, and Fin- 
gerhuth, not one is left on which we can found its claim to 
be regarded as a distinct species — or scarcely even as a va- 
riety j3 minor. Hyoscyamus pallidus is distinguished 
merely by the absence of the violet reticulated veins of the 
