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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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