vitamine-rich beverages. Our information on these edible 
species of Solanum is sparse, and, in some cases, its re- 
liability is suspect. This is due primarily to the difficulty 
of precise identification of collections of Solanum, one of 
the largest genera of plants and one which, like many 
others in the family, suffers woefully from lack of modern 
taxonomic revision. There are undoubtedly an apprecia- 
ble number of new species in the genus, in spite of the 
many concepts already described, and it appears that 
perhaps some of the species locally cultivated as eco- 
nomic plants fall into this category. 
The present paper is offered as a preliminary summary 
of our knowledge of Colombian species of Solanum cul- 
tivated tor their edible fruits. Much of the information 
contained in this summary has resulted from the field 
investigations of the authors and their botanical col- 
leagues. It continues partial studies by both of the au- 
thors in previous articles and in a book: Schultes, R. EF. 
and J. Cuatrecasas: **‘Notes on the cultivated Julo™ in 
Bot. Mus. Leafl., Harvard Univ. 16 (1958) 97; Schultes, 
R. Eo: ‘'A little known cultivated plant from northern 
South America’ ibid. 18 (1958) 229; and Romero- 
Castaneda, R.: **Frutas silvestres de Colombia’ 1 (1961) 
282-292. We have not felt constrained to include litera- 
ture references to Solanum species with edible fruit with- 
out seeing voucher specimens ourselves. ‘There remains 
open, obviously, an extensive field for future studies of 
this subject along both academic and practical lines of re- 
search. We hope that this brief contribution may stimu- 
late studies of such a nature. 
Solanum alibile PR. 1. Schultes sp. nov. 
Krautex usque ad quattuor ped. altus, robustior, sub- 
scandens. Rami robusti, teretes, lepidoto-pubescentes, 
cortice brunneo. Ramuli densissime albo-stellato-tomen- 
[ 236 | 
