336 SOLANACEAE. 
SOLANUM. 
(Family Solanaceae). 
Soft-wooded twiners (for our 
purposes): deciduous. Stems. 
rather slender, terete or tortuously 
somewhat 3-angled: pith relatively 
large, greenish and white, spongy. 
Buds small, solitary, sessile, sub- 
globose, with about 4 hairy blunt 
scales. Leaf-scars alternate, half- 
round, much-raised: bundle-trace 
1, comparatively large: stipule- 
sears lacking. Panicle- vestiges 
with dried berries often present, 
extra-axillary and often opposite 
the leaf-scars above. 
Winter-character references: — 
Solanum Dulcamara. Bosemann, 
40; Fant, 12, f. 7; Schneider, f. 
83. 
Notwithstanding its rather suc- 
culent stem, the bittersweet is one 
of the hardiest climbers. Its 
berries are reputed poisonous if eaten and some of the most 
active alkaloids are derived from the Solanaceae; but the 
tomato, potato and egg plant are produced by species of the 
genus- Solanum to which the bittersweet belongs. 
Stems olivaceous, glabrate. (Bittersweet). S. Dulecamara. 
