SOLANUM TORKEVI. TURREV's SOLANUM. 3 1 



almost enough for one man. It is also interesting to note that 

 the greater part of these are natives of the American Continent. 

 They mostly love heat, however, and few species are found able 

 to endure the winter of the United States. Dr. Gray has less 

 than twenty species in his "Synopsis," and some of these are 

 doubtfully native. 



The name Solaniim is a very ancient one, and no one now 

 seems to know to what plant it was originally applied, or w^hy 

 the name was given to whatever plant it may have been. Don 

 says it is "a name given by Pliny, but the derivation is uncer- 

 tain. Some derive it from Sol, the sun ; others say it is Solanum, 

 from Sus, being serviceable in disorders of swine ; and others 

 from Solor, to comfort, from its soothinor narcotic effects : all 

 these conjectures are, however, improbable." vSome botanists 

 have adopted one, some another of these conjectures, but Dr. 

 Gray decides the "derivation uncertain." It may be noted 

 however that the first and last suggestions given by Don are 

 probably the same, as Solor and Sol are evidently from the same 

 root. The Ladn poet Virgil evidently uses the word Sol in the 

 application to clear soothing weather, and the transition in this 

 reladon to our word solace is evident enough. Ainsworth in 

 his dicdonary says posidvely Solanum is a sole, which is Ladn 

 signifying from the Sun. All that is certainly known is that by 

 the name the old Greeks and Romans had in view some sooth- 

 ing or narcotic plant, and what were known as " Nightshades," 

 during the Middle Ages, or at least as far back as we can trace 

 botanical knowledge, were associated with Solanum. Tourne- 

 fort, about the year 1700, limited the genus as we now have it, 

 and Linnaeus adopted the name in his " Genera Plantarum," 

 in 1737. 



Associated as Solanum was with the "Nightshades" in which 

 is the celebrated Atropa Belladonna, the wdiole family of vSolanum 

 was at one time looked on with suspicion. The potato and, for 

 the popular purpose we have now in view, the egg-plant and 

 tomato, all near enough to the genus to be at one dme consid- 



