lulo from western Colombia.° Only field research and the 
assembling of enough botanical samples will settle the 
question of what species of Solanum this may be. 
In a descriptive report on the District of Vijes in the 
jurisdiction of Cali, made by José Lorenzo de Reina on 
July 20th, 1808, we find a statement that the few inhabi- 
tants of Ciénaga Larga, in the basin of the Bitaco River, 
tributary of the Dagua, a temperate region, grew plan- 
tains, maize, some arracachas and lulos (Villaquiran, 1959, 
61-66: 232). These lulos are undoubtedly Solanum quito- 
ense, most probably the variety septentrionale. By the 
middle of the 18th Century, Solanum quitoense had spread 
to the south. Amongst the plants which he had collected 
in Lima and vicinity and in the neighboring valleys in 
the first half of 1778, the botanist Hipoélito Ruiz in- 
cludes: ‘‘Solanum angulosum, common name narangitas 
de Quito, ‘little oranges from Quito,’ because they come 
from that province and because the fruit has the shape 
and color of a small orange. Women esteem this fruit 
for its scent and for the particular taste that they give to 
the maté beverage, the custom being to drop it in some 
of the juice. They are also accustomed to include these 
fruits in the mixed bouquets of flowers for the purpose 
of beautifying the bouquet and of making the mixture 
more pleasant with its fragrance’’ (Ruiz, 1952, 1, 30). In 
another place, Ruiz wrote that he sent to Spain seeds of 
Solanum peruvianum or naranjitas de Quito with the first 
parcel of plants and seeds mailed in 1780. The cases with 
the living plants were lost (ibid., 434, 443). 
In the National Period (the previous data are from Co- 
lonial documents), Edouard André saw naranjilla in the 
Pasto market in 1876 and identified it as Solanum galea- 
tum. Although he did not describe the plant, he praised 
® Verbal report from the agronomist Dr. Camilo Castro, at present 
Governor of the Department of Meta. 
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