126 SOLANACE^. [SOLANDM. 



ovate, acute, subentire or sinuate-lob ed, cuneate or truncate at the 

 base and often unequal-sided, sparsely prickly and stellate-pubescent 

 on both sides, the upper surface with also a few bulbous-based hairs. 

 Flowers in extra-axillary racemose cymes ; peduncles and pedicels 

 short, clothed with grey stellate pubescence and sometimes prickly. 

 Calyx 5-tpothed, about 5 in. long, sometimes with a few straight 

 slender spines, teeth triangular. Corolla blue, rotate, f-1 in. in diam.; 

 with purple stellate hairs outside ; lobes in. long, broadly triangular, 

 Berry % in. in diam., globose, orange- yellow when ripe, usually gla- 

 brous, supported by the scarcely altered calyx. Seeds in. in diam., 

 minutely dotted. 



Common within the area on waste ground. DISTRIB : Throughout India, 

 ascending to 5,000 ft. on the Himalaya ; also in Ceylon and extending 

 to Malaya, China and the Philippines. The roots and berries are used 

 in native medicine, and the latter as a vegetable in some parts of 

 India. Allied to the above is S. torvum, Swartz, a common plant in 

 Bengal. It is less prickly and has white flowers and larger berries, and 

 may very possibly occur within this area. 



5. S. incanum, Linn. Sp. PL 188; Coo'ke Fl. Bomb, ii, 267 ; S 

 coagulans, For sic. Fl. JLgypt.-Arab. 46; F. B. I. iv t 236 ; Watt E. D. Vern. 

 Asind (Merwara). 



A stiff prickly shrub, densely clothed with soft yellowish stellate 

 pubescence ; prickles stout, recurved, shining above, broad and usually 

 tomentose at the base. Leaves petioled, 34 in. long, ovate-elliptic 

 sinuate or lobed, stellate-tomentose above with soft fulvous hairs,, 

 densely woolly beneath, midrib and sometimes the lateral nerves with 

 scattered prickles, base subcordate or truncate, rarely cuneate, petioles 

 prickly. Peduncles lateral, usually in pairs, one bearing a solitary 

 fertile flower, the other a raceme of males. Calyx densely stellate- 

 hairy, -3- in. long, usually prickly in the fertile flowers ; lobes trian- 

 gular, acute. Corolla blue, under f in. long, stellate-hairy on both 

 sides. Filaments glabrous. Ovary globose, hairy at the summit, style 

 hairy below. Berry about 1 in. in diam.; ovoid or subglobose, yellow. 

 Seeds minutely pitted. 



Siwalik range (Eoyle), Merwara (Duthle). Flowers Jan.-May. DISTRIB. : 

 Punjab Plain and eastwards to the bhdbar and lower hills of Kumaon 

 ascending to 4,000 ft.; also in S. India extending to Baluchistan, 

 Arabia Egypt and to Tropical and S. Africa. The fruit is said to be 

 eaten by natives either raw or pickled. This plant is more rigid and 

 more tomentose than S. Melongena, and the tomentum is usually 

 tinged with yellow ; the calyx-tube is often strongly spinous, and the 

 deeply divided corolla is more densely hairy outside. 



SOLANUM MELONGENA, L. The Egg-plant or Brinjal (Vern. Baigan or 

 baingan} is largely cultivated within the area and in all warm countries. 

 It is not truly wild in India, and its native country is not quite certain. 

 DeCandolle regarded it as a native of Asia, and not of America, whilst 

 others believed it to have come from Arabia. Many distinct forms or 



