Here in England it is chiefly found in uncultivated places: in church-yards, about old walls, among rubbish in shady places, about dunghills, in lanes, and sometimes about woods and hedges. It begins to flower in June, and maintains a succession of flowers for two months. The berries are ripe in September and October.
It is of great importance, that the knowlege of poisonous plants should be extended as much as possible, that they may the better be avoided, and their fatal effects thro' mistake be guarded against: there can therefore be no impropriety in enumerating particularly some of those places, where our English botanists have observed it. Mr. Ray mentions its being found in the church-yard and lanes about Fulburn in Cambridgeshire, Sutton-Colefield in Warwickshire: in the Downs: at Cuckstone, near Rochester in Kent, all the yards and backsides are over-run with it. Ray. Syn. Upon Clifton-hill, near Nottingham; also in a quarry near the cold-bath at Mansfield. Catal. Notting. In Currenwood-kins, near Burton in Kendal, and other places in Westmorland. Wilson's Syn. Dr. Wilmer found it amoung the bogs going down to Dorking in Surrey, plentifully. In Preston church-yard, near Feversham in Kent. Mr. Watson found it by the wood-side, under the park-wall, between Temsford-mills and Welwyn, Hertfordshire; and near the road between Rochester and Maidstone. Mr. Blackstone found it in a shady gravel-pit near the old park-wood at Harefield, and in the gardens at More-park near Rickmansworth, plentifully. Specim. Botan. About Rochester and Chatham, where it grows in the joints of old walls, and in most of the unfrequented lanes: also in Woodstock-park in Oxforshire, and Up-park in Hampshire. I have observed it four or five years since on the edge of Charley-forest: about Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire. It grows about North Luffenham in Rutland.
Its Poisonous Quality.
There have been many fatal instances of the narcotic and deleterious effects of the berries of this plant. They are upon record in almost all botanical, and many medical authors. Children have unhappily been the principal sufferers this way, being tempted to eat by the enticing aspect of the berries, or by mistaking them for some other fruit. The berries, however, are not the only part of the plant, which partake of this intoxicating and poisonous property: the whole plant is endued with it, and that in no small degree.
If the Bella-donna is allowed to be the Στρύχνος μανικὸς of Dioscorides[9], this quality of it was not unknown to that writer. It was very soon known to the first writers in the medical and botanic way after the restoration of letters; and they have not failed to inform us of it.
Tragus and Fuchsius, who wrote about the middle of the sixteenth century, both relate instances of the poisonous effects of these berries: the former, of a man, who went mad after having eaten of them; the latter, of two children, who perished by the same means[10].
Lobel[11] tells us, that the berries of this plant are present death; and informs us of some youths, who, after eating them, became stupified, and died as from an over-dose of opium.
Matthiolus[12] relates, from his own knowlege, of some children poisoned by the same means.
Among all the instances of the intoxicating nature of this plant, there is none more memorable than that mentioned by the Scotch historian Buchanan[13], of the destruction of the army of Sweno; which is quoted by almost all authors, who have wrote upon this plant. It is there said, that the Scots mixed a quantity of the juice of these berries with the drink, which, by their truce, they were to supply the Danes with; which so intoxicated them, that the Scots killed the greatest part of them while they were asleep. How far this anecdote is to be depended upon, or whether other concurrent circumstances ought not to be taken into the account, I cannot determine.
Our own herbalist Gerard[14] mentions the case of three boys in the Isle of Ely, who, having eaten of these berries, two of them died in less than eight hours; but the third, by drinking plentifully of honey and water, and vomiting after it, recovered.