N. ORD.—SOLANACE. 4125 
GENUS.—SOLANUM. 
SEX. SYST.—PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
SOLANUM NIGRUM. 
BLACK NIGHTSHADE. 
SYN.—_SOLANUM NIGRUM, LINN.; S. PTEROCAULON, DUNAL.; 8S. CRE- 
NATO-DENTATUM, PTYCANTHUM, AND INOPS, D.C. 
COM. NAMES.—_COMMON OR GARDEN NIGHTSHADE, BLACK NIGHT- 
SHADE, DEADLY NIGHTSHADE;* (FR.) MORELLE NOIR; (GER.) 
SCHWARZER NACHSCHATTEN. 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE HERB SOLANUM NIGRUM, LINN. 
Description.— This low, weedy, annual herb grows to a height of from 1 to 2 
feet. Svem angular, glabrous, pubescent when young, diffusely spreading or 
branching, and more or less rough on the angles; éranches mostly twisted. 
Leaves ovate, cuneate, somewhat obtusely, acutely, or acuminately tipped, and 
usually much perforated by insects; margin varying from coarsely, crenately, or 
irregularly toothed, to entire. /xflorescence in small, pedunculate, lateral, and 
extra-axillary, umbel-like, drooping cymes; flowers quite small, white or whitish. 
Calyx much shorter than the corolla, merely spreading in fruit; see¢h ovate, acut- 
ish. Corolla wheel-shaped, 5-parted, valvate in the bud; Aeza/s oblong-lanceolate, 
reflexed, closely studded with minute papillae upon the upper surface. Stamens 
exserted ; fidaments very short, more or less hairy inside; anthers large, connivent 
around the style, blunt, opening by two terminal pores. Ovary globular, 2-celled ; 
style columnar, mostly included, hairy at its base; sé#gma capitate. /ruzt a small 
cluster of blue-black, globular berries, each about the size of a large pea. Seeds 
numerous, flattened ; emdryo slender, curved ; cotyledons semiterete, not larger than 
the radicle. 
Solanacess.— Lhis large, well-known order, whose representatives grow mostly 
in tropical and subtropical regions, furnishes North American botany with 14 genera, 
ror species, and 24 recognized varieties. The order is characterized as follows: 
Herbs, shrubs, or even trees, commonly rank-scented, and having a watery juice. _ 
Leaves alternate, never truly opposite, though, being often unequally geminate | 
they have the appearance of being opposite ; sé#pudes none. /uflorescence properly — 
terminal and cymose, but variously modified, sometimes scorpioid-racemiform ; > 
pedicels not bracted, or, if bracted, then not in the axils. lowers perfect and — 
Corolla with its lobes induplicate-valvate, plicate, — 
“t * 
mostly regular, 5- 4-merous. 
% Belladonna alone answers to this name: it does not grow wild in this country. 
