129 
FronuLA HowekoNaENsIs: an Enumeration of the Plants collected 
in the Island of Hongkong, by Major J. G. Champion, 95/2 Reg. ; 
the determinations revised and the new species described by GEORGE 
BENTHAM, Esa. 
(Continued from p. 58.) 
SOLANES. 
Of the four plants belonging to this Order hitherto found in Hong- 
kong, three have a wide range in East India and other tropical countries, 
and have become apparently naturalized in the island in waste places 
or cultivated lands. The fourth, although originally described as of 
Chinese origin, evidently extends on the one side to Sillet and Northern 
India, and on the other to the Moluccas. 
1. Solanum nigrum, Linn. 
This species includes nearly the whole of the Morelle vere of Dunal, 
about fifty supposed species. I have repeatedly endeavoured, but in 
vain, to sort out into varieties, from the characters given in the Prodro- 
mus, the numerous specimens I possess from all parts of the world. 
2. Solanum decemdentatum, Roxb.—S. Calleryanum and S. Osbeckii, 
Dun. in DC. Prodr. vol. xiii. p. 178.— Probably also S. biflorum, Lour., 
. and some others enumerated by Dunal, besides perhaps 5. crassipetalum, 
N. ab E. in Linn. Trans. vol. xviii. p. 42, overlooked in the Prodromus. 
Roxburgh expressly states that the plant he described was raised in the 
Calcutta Garden from Chinese seeds, and is correctly quoted by Nees. 
Dunal however does not appear on this occasion to have had access 
either to Roxburgh’s ‘ Flora’ or to Nees’s carefully worked-up paper on 
Indian Solanee in the Linnean Transactions. a 
3. Solanum feroz, Linn. 
— A common East Indian plant, of which the synonymy appears to hus 
have been carefully elucidated by Nees in the above-mentioned paper, - 
but has since been thrown back into utter confusion in the Prodromus. xe 
The species includes at least the 5. feroz, S. lasiocarpum, and S.s£ramo- —— 
nifolium of the latter work, but not the S. stramonifolium of Jacquin, — 
which Nees has shown to be a West Indian plant allied to S. torvum, ' 
whilst S. stramonifolium of Lamarck is the East Indian form of S. torvum 
itself. The S. feroz minus, figured by Wight, Ic. t. 1400, with smooth 
fruit and narrow lobes to the calyx, can scarcely be the same as the —— i 
form so designated by Nees, and is evidently a distinct species, as sug- 
VOL. V. ^ ; 
