Tas. 6866. 
SOLANUM TRILOBATUM. 
Native of the East Indies. 
‘ 
Nat. Ord. Sotanacex.—Tribe SonanEex. 
Genus Sotanum, Linn.; (Benth, et Hook. S. Gen. Pl. vol. ii. p. 888.) 
Sotanum trilobatum ; suffrutex subscandens, stellatim tomentellus, demum glaber, 
ramis flexuosis tenuibus rigidiusculis petiolisque aculeis validis recurvis 
armatis, foliis subremotis petiolatis ovatis rotundatis oblongisve obtusis in- 
zqualiter sinuato-3-5-lobatis, eymis lateralibus axillaribus et terminalibus 
paucifloris, pedicellis gracilibus eiongatis, calycis lobis parvis, corolle ample 
violaceze v. albz lobis ovatis obtusis, bacca globosa rubra calyce immutato 
suffulta, seminibus levibus. 
8. trilobatum, Linn. Sp. Pi. p. 188; Burm. Fl. Ind. p. 57, t. 22; Roxb. Fl. Ind. 
vol. i. p. 571; Ait. Hort. Kew, ed. 2, vol. i. p. 405; Dunal Solan. p. 225, 
2 and in DC. Prodr. vol. xiii. pt. 1, p. 287; Wight Ic. Pl. Ind. Or. t. 854; 
1 Clarke in Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vol. iv. p. 236. 
. 8. acetosefolium, Lamk. Dict. vol. iv. p. 306; Dunal Solan. p. 226. 
8. canaranum, Mig. Pl. Exsicc. Hohenack., No. 740. 
It is rather remarkable that this very common and really 
ornamental Indian plant should not have been figured in any 
English work, though introduced into cultivation a hundred 
_ and thirty years ago. It isenumeratedin Miller’s ‘Gardener's 
Dictionary,” and in the “ Hortus Kewensis,” which gives 
the date of its cultivation in Miller’s garden as 1759. 
Tt is a very common plant in rubbishy places of the Western 
Peninsula of India and in Ceylon, growing prostrate and 
also ascending bushes for several feet by its hooked prickles. 
In the Eastern Peninsula it is found from Arracan to 
Malacca, in tidal swamps, and it occurs also in China. 
Roxburgh, who gives an excellent description of it, says 
that the leaves are a favourite pot-herb of the Telingas in 
the Northern Circars. 
The plant figured was raised from seed sent from Madras 
by the Rt. Hon. M. E. Grant Duff, Governor of Madras, 
and flowered in September. 
_ Desscr. A prostrate rambling or climbing nearly gla- 
-brous undershrub. Stem two to five feet high, slender, 
- MARCH Isr, 1886. 
