Belladonna Took is Bilbo Baggins' mother.  She is one of three daughters of the Old Took who was the "head of the hobbits who lived across The Water" (4).  The narrator describes Belladonna as being remarkable and adventurous, as least until she settled down with Bungo Baggins, Bilbo's father.  Other hobbits in Hobbiton often speculated that one of the Took ancestor's had fairy bloodlines somehow, because there was something "not entirely hobbitlike about them" (4).  The Tooks were prone to having adventures.

Even Bilbo recalls upon visiting with Gandalf that he remembered "so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the blue for mad adventures" (7).  Belladonna Took, althought never officially present for a single page of The Hobbit, does play a large role in Bilbo's adventure--by unwittingly passing down to him the "Tookish" bloodlines and a natural longing for adventure.  In fact upon hearing the dwarves' song, "something Tookish woke up inside him and he wished to go and see the great mountains" (15).