III.] 



SOLANACEAL, 



251 



Observe the frequently geminate, though not strictly 

 opposite, leaves of the Solanums : the extra-axillary peduncle, 

 well shown in the Type : the accrescent calyx of Physalis 

 (Cape Gooseberry) : the connivent anthers, opening by pores 

 at their tips : the four-celled prickly fruit of the Thom 

 Apple {Datura), a weed of waste places ; the dorsal suture 

 of the carpels is inflected so far as to meet the placentas, 

 so that the ovary becomes spuriously four-celled — spuriously, 

 because the dissepiments are not all the inflected 7?iargins 

 of carpellary leaves, by which alone the ovary is normally 

 divided into distinct cells. Hence, whenever there are 

 more cells than carpels, some of the dissepiments are 

 necessarily spurious in this technical sense. 



Several species of the very large, chiefly tropical, genus 

 Solanum are common in India, and any of them will serve 

 as type in lieu of the above, as the Egg-plant, Brinjal, or 

 Aubergine {S. Melojigejia), an introduced garden species, or 

 the tomentose 6". verbascifolia. 



This Family includes, besides many very valuable food- 

 plants, many dangerous, narcotic poisons. This anomaly, 

 of species apparently so diverse in their properties being 

 included in the same Natural Order, is explicable when we 



