Tas. 6756. 
SOLANUM MaActtia. 
Native of Chili. 
Nat. Ord. SonranacEx%.—Tribe SoLanex. 
Genus Soranum, Linn.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen.,P1. vol. ii. p. 888.) 
Soranum Maglia; herbaceum, inerme, puberulum, rhizomate tuberifero, caule 
erecto ramoso alato, foliis pinuatis, foliolis 5-7 majoribus late ovatis oblongisve 
basi rotundatis v. cordatis lateralibus petiolulatis, minoribus interjectis parvis 
v. 0, infimis stipuleformibus, cymis compositis longe pedunculatis, pedicellis 
medio articulatis, calycis hispidi lobis ovato-lanceolatis tubo longioribus, corolla 
rotata lobis brevibus deltoideis, filamentis brevissimis, stylo elongato. 
S. Maglia, Schlecht. Hort. Hal. vol. i.p. 6; Dunal in DC. Prodr. vol. xiii. pt. 1, 
p- 33; Baker in Journ. Linn, Soe. vol. xxi. ined. 
S. tuberosum, Sabine in Trans. Hort. Soc. vol. v. p. 240, t. 9, £. 2 et 11. 
The plate opposite to this description represents charac- 
teristically the plant tubers of which were sent by Mr. 
Alexander Caldcleugh from Chili to the Royal Horticultural 
Society in 1822 as those of the true wild Potato, and which 
was afterwards found by Darwin in the Chonos Archipelago, 
and mentioned in his narrative of “‘The Voyage of the 
Beagle.” The history of both these discoveries is well 
known; Mr. Caldcleugh’s tubers were cultivated in manured 
soil at the Horticultural Society’s Gardens, where two plants 
yielded about 600 tubers of the size of a pigeon’s egg and 
under, which had when boiled the flavour of a common 
potato. This plant and its tubers were fully described by 
Sabine in the Society’s Transactions. Darwin describes 
his tubers as oval, two inches in diameter, and as exactly 
resembling in smell and shape the common potato, but they 
shrunk and proved watery and insipid when boiled. Tubers 
of the same species were given to Kew in 1862 by Dr. 
Sclater, F.R.S.; these were grown in the sandy soil of the 
pleasure grounds without manure. They bore no tubers 
in 1863 or 1864, but have since, and the plate here given 
represents these, its cultivation having been continued up 
to this time. 
MAY Ist, 1884. 
