18 NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
conditions of men, though well known to be a most energetic poison when received 
into the intestinal canal. I have known a child deprived of life in a few minutes from 
the administration of a too powerful Tobacco enema, The berries of the Bittersweet 
(Solanum dulcamera) are also intensely poisonous as proved by the frequency of fatal 
consequences to children who have ignorantly partaken of them. To set against these, this 
family furnishes the Potatoe to the world at large, and the Brinjal to the tropics and warm 
latitudes on either side, as nourishing esculents, equally prized by rich and poor; the so- 
called Brazil cherry (Physalis Peruviana), as a fruit, and the Capsicum as an equal] 
generally esteemed warm condiment with which to season the insipid vegetable diet on 
which Natives of tropical countries so largely subsist. And, lastly, it gives us the delicate 
Tomata the delight of the genuine Epicure. These examples show how largely mankind 
are indebted to this family for medicine, food, and luxuries: and, as if unwilling to leave 
any of his wants unprovided for, Brazil furnishes a Solanum which the inhabitants consider 
equal to the true Cinchona, in curing their fevers. 
This order contains about 1200 described species, but there are very many more col- 
lected in herbaria still undescribed, but which I presume we may ere long hope to see 
brought to light, through the medium of De Candolle’s Prodromus, when the monograph 
of the family appears in that great work, but which, unhappily for science, it has not 
yet done. Of the named and described species, nearly 100 belong to the Indian Flora, 
but many of these have been reduced to the rank of varieties by Professor Nees Von 
Esenbeck in a monograph of the Indian Solanacez, published about 16 or 17 years ago in 
the Linnean Transactions, Whether future Botanists will adopt these reductions remains 
to be seen. 
n its geographical distribution it occupies a wide range, extending from the tropics 
through both temperate zones, but are most abundant in the warmer regions. In India 
the species are not numerous, though individually abundant : they are found in nearly 
all situations in shade and sun-shine; in low moist grounds and elevated parched ones ; 
ou heaps of rubbish and in the best cultivated gardens, on the sea shore and tops of the 
loftiest mountains. Of the Peninsular ones none seem prized as ornamental objects, though 
the Datura, were it a less common and dangerous neighbour, might, on account of its large 
handsome trumpet-like flowers, merit a place in the shrubbery, the more so as it shows 
a strong tendency to become double, often presenting three or four corollas one within the 
other, like graduated sets of chemical test tubes. The Petunias are generally admitted 
into gardens and are deservedly prized as ornamental objects. 
SOLANUM. 
Calyx 4-5-8- or 10-cleft or toothed, persistent. Corolla rotate or rarely campanulate, plicate four- or 
five-cleft or sinuately angled. Anthers connivent, opening at the apex by two pores, equal, or sometimes 
the lower ones larger. Berries two- or rarely several-celled, many-seeded, naked. Seed glabrous, reniform. 
Embryo curved spirally round the edge enclosing the albumen. Herbs, shrubs or trees, unarmed or fur- 
nished with prickles, glabrous or hairy, the hairs sometimes stellate: leaves alternate, solitary or in pairs, 
one usually smaller, entire or variously di 
paired, fascicled or umbelled, racimose, cymose, or corymbed, rarely panicled; corolla white or purplish 
rarely yellow. 
This as it now stands recorded in Walper’s Repertorium Botanicum and Annals is a genus of vast 
extent, including about 600 species and as may be surmised from the conclusion of the generic character 
