Pungent and poisonous plants and fruits abounded on every side.
We have all of us in our youth been taken in by some too cruelly waggish
companion, who insisted upon making us eat the bright, glossy leaves of
the common English arum, which without look pretty and juicy enough, but
within are full of the concentrated essence of pungency and profanity.
Well, there are hundreds of such plants, even in cold climates, to tempt
the eyes and poison the veins of unsuspecting cattle or childish
humanity. There is buttercup, so horribly acrid that cows carefully
avoid it in their closest cropped pastures; and yet your cow is not
usually a too dainty animal. There is aconite, the deadly poison with
which Dr. Lamson removed his troublesome relatives. There is baneberry,
whose very name sufficiently describes its dangerous nature. There are
horse-radish, and stinging rocket, and biting wall-pepper, and still
smarter water-pepper, and worm-wood, and nightshade, and spurge, and
hemlock, and half a dozen other equally unpleasant weeds. All of these
have acquired their pungent and poisonous properties, just as nettles
have acquired their sting, and thistles their thorns, in order to
prevent animals from browsing upon them and destroying them. And the
animals in turn have acquired a very delicate sense of pungency on
purpose to warn them beforehand of the existence of such dangerous and
undesirable qualities in the plants which they might otherwise be
tempted incautiously to swallow.
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