Images: ©Jouko Lehmuskallio
Henbane
Hyoscyamus niger
- Family: Potato Family – Solanaceae
- Growing form: Usu. biennial herb.
- Height: 15–100 cm (6–40 in.). Stem sparsely-branched, dense-leaved, sticky, hairy.
- Flower: Slightly irregular, 2–3 cm (0.4–1.2 in.) across. Petals 5, united, corolla brownish–yellow with purple veins, broadly funnel-shaped, short-tubed, with dark throat. Sepals 5, united, calyx bell-shaped, inflated in fruit, lobes hardened into spines. Stamens 5, joined to corolla-tube. Pistil of 2 fused carpels. Inflorescence a dense terminal cyme.
- Leaves: During first year rosette leaves stalked. Second year stem leaves alternate, unstalked and stem-clasping. Blade elliptic to ovate, large-toothed to pinnatifid.
- Fruit: A circumscissile capsule enclosed within the persistent calyx.
- Habitat: Waste ground, roadsides, yards, gardens, fields, churchyards, ruins, ports, mills.
- Flowering time: June–September.
The henbane is a fetid, sticky, densely hairy, usually biennial plant with an erect stem. The plant is very poisonous. It contains alkaloids that have a paralysing effect on the muscular system. It has been used to alleviate tooth- and earache, and in the Middle Ages as a narcotic in operations.
The henbane often occurs near old habitation and fortresses. Its seeds may stay viable for very long. When the ground is excavated they germinate. In the year of germination the plant produces a leaf rosette. It flowers in the following year. By then, the rosette leaves have withered.
