THE POTATOE FAMILY. 



221 



LXIIL— THE POTATOE FAMILY. Solanaeece. 



One of the large and important families of botanical nature, com- 

 mending itself to our attention alike by the beauty of its flowers and 

 fruits, and by the powerful and often deadly quality of its secretions. 

 Leaves alternate, destitute of stipules, but sometimes accompanied by 

 a smaller leaf at the base, and either simple and undivided, or lobed, 

 or irregularly pinnatifid or pinnate. Flowers regular, or slightly 

 unequal, usually pentamerous, often bell-shaped, or starlike. Stamens 

 inserted upon the corolla, and corresponding in number with its lobes, 

 with which they are alternate. Ovary single, two-celled, or incom- 

 pletely four-celled. Style one ; stigma simple. Fruit a berry, or 

 sometimes a capsule ; in either case with many seeds. The calyx 

 often remains until the fruit is ripe ; and the peduncles often spring 

 from the internodes instead of the axils. Most of the species are 

 herbaceous, or imdershrubby, but a few become soft-wooded trees. 



Fig. 139. 

 Bitter-sweet Nightshade. 



Linnaeus called this family " Lurida?," from their suspicious smell 

 and appearance, which he regarded as indicative of the narcotics and 

 terrible poisons so abundantly diffused among their species. Stra- 

 monium, henbane or Hyoscyamus, tobacco, belladonna, nightshade, 

 meet here in deadly compact, with a long train of plants which, if not 

 absolutely noxious, are most potent in their action upon the human 

 frame. Hence the value of the family in medicine, which derives 



