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Bigelow, Jacob, 1786-1879 / American medical botany, being a collection of the native medicinal plants of the United States, containing their botanical history and chemical analysis, and properties and uses in medicine, diet and the arts, with coloured engravings
(1817)

Notes,   pp. [192]-197


Page [192]

 
NOTES. 
                          Note 3. 
    MOST European writers seem to consider the Datura stra- 
 monium as a native of America. In Miller's Dictionary by 
 Martyn, the editor says, ", That it is a native of America, we 
 have the most undoubted proofs, for in earth brought with 
 plants from various parts of that extensive country, we are sure 
 to have the Thorn apple come up. Kaim says, that it grows 
 about all the villages, and that this and the Phytolacca are the 
 worst weeds there. Our old writers call it Thorny Apples of 
 Peru." 
    This evidence however is by no means sufficient. The plant 
appears in earth and ballast, carried from either continent alike. 
The name Apple of Peru has also been applied to Datura metel, 
a plant of Africa and the East Indies. 
                         Yote B. 
   In the Catalogue of plants in the Botanic garden at Calcutta, 
published in 1814, a species is inserted by the name of Datura 
Tatula, said to be a native of the Cape of Good Hope. This is 
probably different from the Datura Tatula of Linnius. 
                         XN'ote C. 
   "The Jamestown weed, (which resembles the thorny apples of 
Peru, and I take it to be the plant so called,) is supposed to be 
one of the greatest coolers in the world. This being an early 
plant, was gathered very young for a boiled sallad, by some of 
the soldiers sent thither to quell the rebellion of Bacon ; and 
some of them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very 


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