Stramonium.
THorn-Aple is of two sorts, a greater and a lesser, the first riseth up with a strong round stalk four or five foot high, spreading at the joynts into many branches, set with large dark green cornered leaves, cut and jag∣ged about the edges; at the joynts come forth large Bell-fashioned white flowers, which are succeeded by great round and somthing prickly Thorny green heads, which being ripe, open into three or four parts, and discover a great quantity of blackish flat seeds within them; the root dies in Winter, and new Plants often come up of its own sowing.
There is another, little differing from this, but that the flowers are of a light purple colour.
The lesser Thorn-Aple differeth from the former, in that it is lower and much lesser in all the parts thereof; the leaves are smooth and rent at the edges, and the stalks without branches; the flowers come forth at the joynts like the other, not so big, but more beautiful, white in colour, and like a Bell in fashion; the Aples or heads that contain the seeds are lesser, rounder and harder than those of the grea∣ter kind; the root dies at the first appearance of Winter.
We talk much of two other varieties of this lesser kind, the one bearing flowers ingeminated, or hose in hose, one coming out of the other; and another that is double, consisting of two or more rows of leaves rising equally together; I have seen the figures of both these well cut in Brass, in two or three Books of Flowers Printed in Forein Countries, and it is like that such there are in those parts, but I am confident they were never seen in England, otherwise than in picture.
For that with single flowers will hardly flower with us, and if it do, it is so late that it seldom yieldeth any good seeds; the greater kind is common and will grow any where, the fittest place is in an Orchard or Kitchen-Garden, for it takes more room than the Plant deserves.