222 THE POTATOE FAMILY. 



from the Solanacefe some of its most energetic drugs. With the 

 poisons are mingled, however, productions fit for food. The potatoe, 

 though the extract from its leaves is a strong narcotic, ranking 

 between belladonna and conium, is inestimable in its farinaceous 

 tubers ; while the tomato, or love-apple — the fruit of the Lyco- 

 pirsicum — that of the egg-plant, or Solanum melongena, and of 

 several others of the genus, are not only harmless, but agreeable. 

 Pungency is at its maximum in Cayenne pepper, prepared from the 

 fruits of the capsicum, which are also the principal element of " hot 

 pickles." The family is distributed all over the world, excepting the 

 extremely cold parts, but is chiefly seated in the tropics. 



Five species are accounted wild in England, three of the number 

 occuiTing near Manchester. 



A. 



1. Flower trumpet-shaped, three inches long, tubular, white,\ 



flushed with yellow ; stamens standing apart from one 



another; leaves ovate, angular; fruit a prickly capsule, ^Thorn-apple. 



the size of a walnut, opening into four pieces ; stem 



branched, two to three feet high • • / 



B. 

 Flower in five starlike points ; stamens forming a cone or pyramid. Inflorescence 

 in lateral corymbs. 



2. A scrambling, undershrubby plant, the stems often fi\e or\ 



six feet long ; the leaves heart-shaped and pointed, many 

 of them hastate ; flowers purple, with two green spots at 

 the base of each segment; anthers large and yellow; >■ 

 berries oval, crimson, and semi-transparent when ripe, 

 and hanging in elegant clusters, which often remain after 

 the leaves are withered. (Fig. 130) ' 



3. Stem herbaceous, twelve or fifteen inches high ; leaves ovate ; ) Black-bruited 



flowers white ; berries black, or occasionally green J NiiiHXSHAUE. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 



1. Thorn-apple — {Datura Stramonium.) 



A native of the East Indies, now extensively naturalized in Europe, 

 owing, it is believed, to the Gipsies, who used the seeds medicinally, 

 and carried it wherever they wandered. By reason of its beauty, both 

 as to flowers and large prickly capsules, it is also a frequent inmate 

 of the garden, l-'rom one source or another, it is frequently found in 

 waste places, among vegetable rubbish, in potatoe fields, on heaps of 

 manure by the wayside, &c., but seldom in the same spot for more 



Bitter-sweet 

 Nightshade. 



