BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
Campripgr, Massacuusetts, May 7, 1962 Vor. 19, No. 10 
EDIBLE FRUITS OF SOLANUM 
IN SOUTH AMERICAN HISTORIC AND 
GEOGRAPHIC REFERENCES‘! 
BY 
Victor MANUEL PatTINo’” 
One of the imperfectly understood aspects of economic 
botany in South America seems to be the use of the edi- 
ble fruits of sundry species of Solanum. Not only is the 
extent to which long-known species are employed a ques- 
tion; but how many species, some perhaps not yet de- 
scribed, are involved remains for intensive agronomic and 
taxonomic research to clarify. The history of domestica- 
tion and geographic dispersal of several of the Solanum- 
concepts herein considered remains, in some aspects, un- 
certain. It is hoped that a thorough consideration of 
historic and geographic reports of these plants may add 
to our growing understanding of them. 
Solanum quitoense Lamarck Ulustr. 2 (1797) 16. 
VERNACULAR NAMES: 
Lulo in western Colombia. 
This article is part of a work on the history of cultivated plants in 
equinoctial America which I have been preparing with the help of the 
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and OAS Fellowship 
Program. The research has been done mainly in the Library of Con- 
gress, Washington, D.C. and the Botanical Museum of Harvard Uni- 
versity, Cambridge, Mass. 
* Formerly Chief of Colonial Crops, Secretariat of Agriculture, Cauca 
Valley, Colombia, 
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