On food : Being lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum / by E. Lankester.

  • Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir, 1847-1929.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On food : Being lectures delivered at the South Kensington Museum / by E. Lankester. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    properties running tlirough the whole order. All con- tain^ more or less, substances that act on the nervous system^ and thus increase from the mild poison of the solanums till we arrive at the deadly principles of the atropas, the henbanes, and the tobaccos. Although there seems little doubt that smoking was introduced from the New world into the Old, yet the material for the practice was not found wanting, for at least two species of Nicotiana, the N. rustica and N. Persica, are indigenous to Asia. It is, however, to the American plant, the Ni- cotiana Tabacuin (Fig. 1), to which I would more particu- larly confine your attention. This plant is an annual, and great care is taken in its cul- ture in the countries where it grows. Its stem rises five or six feet in height, branching at the top. The leaves are sesile, very lai'ge, and ovate or lanceolate in form. They are of a pale-green colour, and are sticky when taken hold of. The flowers appear in bunches at the end of the stem or branches. The corolla is funnel-shaped, yellowish, of a dull-red colour at their edges. The seeds are numerous and contained in an ovate two- celled capsule, which is surrounded by the calyx. The tobacco-plant grows readily in this country in almost any good garden-soil. The seeds should be Fig. 1.— Virginia Tobacco.