The Chinese primrose (_Primula obconica_), lately introduced into greenhouses, has been found to be almost as injurious as the poison-vine. Its effects, of course, are limited to a much smaller group of sufferers. And it is worth while, in connection with poisoning by primula and the poisoning by _Rhus toxicodendron_ of only certain individuals predisposed to its influence, to point out that the malady known as hay fever seems to be similar in its character to these vegetable poisonings. It is, of course, well known that only certain individuals are liable to the more violent and serious form of hay fever. It is not at all improbable that this irritation of the air passages, often attributed to the mechanical action of the pollen of grass and other plants—really is due to minute quantities of a poison like that of the poison-vine, present in the pollen of some hay plant yet to be suspected, tried, and convicted.[2] With regard to a poisonous action at a distance being possibly exerted by plants, we must not overlook the effects of some perfumes discharged into the air by flowers. Primarily such perfumes appear to serve the flowers by attracting to them special insects, by whose movements and search for honey in the flowers the pollen of one is conveyed to another and fertilisation effected. Human beings are sometimes injuriously affected by the heavy perfume given out by lilies and other flowers, headache and even fainting being the result. No instance is known of serious injury or death resulting in the regions where they grow from the overpowering perfume of such flowers. But that admirable story-teller, Mr. H. G. Wells, has made a legitimate use of scientific possibilities in imagining the existence of a rare tropical orchid which attracts large animals to it by its wonderful odour. The effects of the perfume are narcotising; the animal, having sniffed at the orchid, drops insensible at the foot of the tree trunk on which the orchid grows. Then the orchid rapidly, with animal-like celerity, sends forth those smooth green fingers or “suckers,” which you may see clinging to the pots and shelves on which an orchid is growing. As they slowly creep, in their growth, over the poisoned animal, they absorb its life’s blood painlessly and without disturbing the death-slumber of the victim. Mr. Wells supposes a retired civil-servant, with feeble health and a passion for orchids, to have purchased an unknown specimen, which, after some months of nursing, is about to blossom in the little hothouse of his suburban home. He goes quietly and alone one afternoon, when his housekeeper is preparing his tea, to enjoy the first sight and smell of the unknown flower, and is found, some three hours later, lying insensible before the orchid, which is giving out an intoxicating odour, and is looking very vigorous and wicked. A blood-red tint pervades its leaves and stalks, and it has already pushed some of its finger-like