Hyoscyamus niger Seeds | Henbane
LATIN NAME: Hyoscyamus niger
COMMON NAME: Henbane
Plant Profile
Known to gardeners as Henbane, Hyoscyamus niger is a noteworthy species in the nightshade family. Henbane is a plant that has been feared and studied for thousands of years. The whole plant carries the strong, unpleasant scent and the powerful character of the nightshade family. It is a plant of open, sunny, waste ground, and it has one of longest and most careful records of any of old plants. Its open flowers are a reliable stop for bees and other pollinating visitors. Few species give back so generously for so little effort.
Science & Biotechnology
Research touching on Hyoscyamus niger ranges from the botany of the nightshade family to practical horticulture, including seed handling, propagation and the selection of superior forms. Henbane holds a steady position in plant science, and plant has been studied for thousands of years for powerful alkaloids that run through the whole of it. Raising it from seed today is a matter of ordinary good practice rather than specialist skill.
Uses & Benefits
In the garden, Henbane earns its place in borders, containers and mixed plantings, and it also rewards growers who raise plants for cutting, drying or kitchen use. Henbane pays its way in history books and botany of old plants. The powerful character of the plant has been studied and written about for thousands of years, and it holds a fine, careful place in the records of the poisonous plants of the nightshade family. Stout, branching plant is an interesting, easy grower of sunny waste ground, and fine, pale-yellow, purple-veined flowers have their own dark, curious beauty. In later seasons it demands little more than an appreciative eye.
Henbane is a plant of legend and danger: it supplies hyoscyamine and scopolamine, used pharmaceutically in measured doses, but the plant itself is acutely toxic and has no place in home use.
Growing from Seed
Henbane grows readily from seed. Scatter the seed evenly over a loose seed compost, cover to no more than its own depth, and keep the pot moist and bright. When the young plants are big enough to handle, space them into pots or a nursery row and let them size up before their final move.
Our Take
Its role in herbal practice, noted above, adds depth to an already garden-worthy plant. Among the Hyoscyamus group, it is one of the more distinctive species in cultivation. Careful watering early on is rewarded by toughness at maturity.
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