SOLANACE^. 295 



SOLANACE^. 



Herbs or shrubs with leaves alternate, or in the upper 

 parts in unequal pairs, and solitary or cymosely arranged 

 perfectly regular monopetalous flowers. Corolla often 

 lobeless and plaited in bud. Stamens five attached to it. 

 Ovary of two carpels, with numerous ovules on peltate 

 placentas. Fruit a many-seeded berry or capsule. 

 Distinguished from other similar families by the partition 

 wall (united placentas) of the ovary not reaching quite 

 to the top, the seeds round and very thin (flat discs) 

 and the anthers usually large and opening by terminal 

 pores. 



Species about 1,500 in the warmer parts of the whole world, 

 but more especially South America. 



The family is divided into four sub-orders, which differ chiefly 

 in the fruit and the folding of the corolla. Common examples 

 of these are — 



I. SOLANUM Potato, Brinjal ; lycopersicum Tomato ; 

 CAPSICUM Chili ; physalis Cape Gooseberry. 



II. LYCiUM Snowberry, a shrub of English gardens ; 

 ATROPA Belladonna. 



III. DATURA Thorn-apple. 



IV. NicoTiANA Tobacco. 



r Fruit a berry enclosed in a large inflated calyx . . . b 

 J Fruit a berry, not enclosed ; leaves simple ; corolla flat . . 



^ I SOLANUM. 



[ Fruit a prickly capsule ; corolla funnel-shaped. datura. 

 f Flowers blue, calyx five-partite (Wintercherry). nicandra. 

 b <j Flowers white with purple spots, calyx only shortly lobed 

 [ (Cape Gooseberry) . physalis. 



SOLANUM. F.B.I. 102 I. 



Potato, Brinjal- 



Herbs or climbing plants with the characteristics 



given above for the family, but the fruit a berry, the 



corolla with short tube and nearly flat (rotate) limb, 



folded in bud, anthers large on very short stalks, and 



