Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1897-10-23
AN INTERESTING Family.
The Unison weed aud Its Numerous
and Important Relatives.

and Important Relatives.
There is one thing that is on a boom
this year in St. Louis and that is the
Unison weed" said a Disguised real es.
tate agent, who had just cut down the
weeds on his vacant lots in the West
End. Il have cut them down a dozen
times aud still they grow
1T is an interesting family 10 which
they belong" remarked his neighbor,
who doesn't own any vacant lots.
prolific family certainly, bus | can't
say that l find it interesting" was the
reply.
And yet these weeds belong to a
family not only interesting, but of great
Importance from an economic point Of
view. The jamestown weed is only an
other species of the plant from which
the priests of Apollo made n decoctiou
to induce that state of ecstasy in keep
ing with the prophetic character OF
their revelations. Tonga is a drink
made from the seeds which the Indians
Of Darien give TO their children that
they may discover the location of gold
Klondikers might take a baby along
and u few jimson weed seeds to make
tea, and when the baby has its dope
and falls down, there daddy could dig
sure of a find.
OF course you eat potatoes, which are
cousins of the jimSon weed, but you
very likely eat them with or without
their jackets, in salad, prepared as Sara.
toga chips or in other ways too numer-
ous to mention, but it is safe to say that
you never eat them preserved, and yet
that is the way Parkinson, writing in
1910, recommended that they be cooked
He suggested that the tubers be roasted
stepped in sugar or baked with marrow
and spices. Here is IN opportunity fol
some e~nterprising chef or housekeepeI
striving for originality TO win distinc.
ton in the way of serving pommes de
terre.
You probably eat tomatoes, too, which
you probably eat with sugar aud cal
Tomatoes, while your plebeian friend
eats his with salt and calls them plain
%tomaytoes. If you are partial to vege'
tables the eggplant, also a night shade,
is found upon your table, possibly sea.
soned with cayenne pepper, another
Of the same family. The great sweet.
smelling masses of white and magenta
petunias which are so familiar, growing
seemingly from the creyiceS Of the
rocks at the suburban gardens and al
the Cottage in Forest park, are also OF
this enterprising family, Bitter sweet
the Jerusalem cherry, apple Of Peru
henbane and the ugly horse nettle are
a few others more or less familiar.
The l~ong-corollcd nicotina nicoti,
flora, which opens, as its name suggests
in the evening, is a fayorite garden
flower, as is the Nierambergia. named
for the gentle scholar-priest of Buenos
Ayres, who first collected it. Another
old-fashioned flower of this family is
the matrimony vine, which is not a vine,
but a shrub with decumbsnt branches.
Belladonna, also known as atropa, is
a night shade. The ladies used it tc
make a wash for freckles, hence its nam
"belladonna," beautiful lady. Its poi.
sonous properties got for it the name
of the cruel fate, Atropos, who cut the
thread of human life as fast as it was
drawn out by Lachesis.
Last, but not least, comes king to.
bacco, product of our own soil, the
royal weed against which popes have
issued bulls and kings mandates, and
still viye lie roi! And irony of fate! Our
own blessed pope orders his own par
ticular brand of snuff made especially
for him at Baltimore. But even a mod.
est Missouri mar as he rests after din.
ner in slippered feet, sans waistcoat,
sans neclltie, watching the blue smoke
curling above his head and dreaming
such dreams as only nicotina tobacum
can produce, takes as much comfort as
his holiness and can echo the remark:
ut is a very interesting family."-St.
Louis Globe-Democrat.