MANDRAKE, a species of the Atropa, from which a reference has been made, possesses a long taper root, resembling the parsnep : running three or four feet into the ground ; immediately from the crown of the root arises a circle of leaves, at first standing erect, but when grown to their full size, they spread open and lie upon the ground ; these leaves are more than a foot in length, and about five inches broad in the middle, Of a dark green colour, and a fcetid scent : among these come out the flowers, each on a scape, three inches in length ; they are five-cornered, of an herbaceous white colour, spreading open at top like a primrose, having five stamens, and a globular germ supporting an awl-shap ed style, which becomes a globular soft berry, when full-grown as large as a nut meg, of a yellowish green colour, and when ripe full of pulp.
Many singular facts are related of this plant, among which we select the follow ing: the roots have been supposed to bear a resemblance to the human form, and are figured as such in the old herbals, being distinguished into the male with a long beard, and the female with a prolix head of hair. Mountebanks carry about
fictitious images, shaped from roots of bryony and other plants, cut into form, or forced to grow through moulds of earth en ware, as mandrake roots. It was fabled to grow under a gallows, where the mat ter falling from the dead body gave it the shape of a man ; to utter a great shriek, or terrible groans, at the digging up ; and it was asserted, that he who would take up a plant of mandrake, should in com mon prudence tie a dog to • it, for that purpose ; for if a man should do it him self, he would surely die soon after. See Marty; I's botany.