* 

 SOLAN ACE.E. 537 



ORDER LXVII. SOLANACE.ffiS. 



Herbs or shrubs (commonly rank-scented), with colorless juice, alternate leaves 

 and no stipules, regular 5-merous 5-androus flowers on bractless pedicels, the corolla 

 valvate or sometimes imbricated and usually plaited in the bud, a single style, and 

 a (normally) 2-celled ovary ; the fruit a many-seeded berry or capsule ; the embryo 

 slender and mostly curved in fleshy albumen : distinguished from Scrophulariacece 

 by the regular 5-androus flowers ; from the preceding orders with free calyx and 

 stamens as many as the lobes of the regular corolla, by the plaited corolla along 

 with a single style, placentae in the axis, numerous seeds, curved embryo, &c. Seeds 

 campylotropous or amphitropous. Calyx usually persistent. Flowers solitary or 

 cymose, mostly unaccompanied by bracts, and the cymes or their branches oftener 

 secund or scorpioid and imitating racemes, in the manner of Borraginacece, &c. 

 Leaves commonly unequally geminate, and peduncle distant from the nearest leaf. 



A large and widely diffused order, mainly affecting the warmer parts of the world, but most 

 sparingly represented in California. Narcotic and poisonous properties prevail in it, as exempli- 

 fied by the Deadly Nightshade of Europe (Atropa Belladonna), Henbane (Hyoscyarmis), Tobacco, 

 &c. Nevertheless it furnishes important esculents, such as the Tomato and Egg-plant, condi- 

 ments, such as Cajwcum, and one staple article of farinaceous food, the Potato. 



The five natural tribes which the order comprises being rather difficult to characterize, and the 

 Californian genera few, it is more convenient to omit tlie former from the synopsis, in which, 

 however, the natural arrangement is mainly followed. 



NICANDKA PHYSALOIDES, Gaertner, sometimes called Apple of Peru, a widely dispersed weed 

 of waste grounds and gardens, is very likely to be introduced, but has not yet been met with. It 

 is like a tall Physalis, but larger-flowered, very smooth, and with a five-celled berry, which dries 

 as it ripens and bursts irregularly like a capsule. 



I. Fruit a berry, from an ovary of 2 or rarely (except in cultivated plants) of 3 or more cells : 



embryo coiled or curved. 



* Corolla rotate or barely campanulate, valvate and mostly induplicate or plaited in the bud. 



1. Lycopersicum. Anthers united into a cone ; the cells opening lengthwise down the inside : 



filaments very short. Leaves pinnately compound, the leaflets stalked. Berry naked. 



2. Solanum. Anthers distinct, but generally conniving, longer than the filaments ; their cells 



opening at the apex by a hole or slit, but often also longitiidinally. 



3. Capsicum. Anthers distinct, short, not longer than the filament, the cells opening length- 



wise, without a terminal hole. Calyx herbaceous, girting only the base of the berry, 

 and with little or no border or lobes. 



4. Chameesaracha. Anthers distinct and not connivent, short, on slender filaments, opening 



lengthwise. Calyx enlarging close around but not completely enclosing the berry, not 

 reticulate- veiny. 



5. Physalis. Anthers distinct, opening lengthwise, without pores. Calyx enlarging, becoming 



bladdery-inflated and reticulate-veiny, enclosing the berry. 



* * Corolla tubular or funnelform, imbricated or induplicate-plaited in the bud. 



6. Oryctes. Herbaceous. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 5-toothed. 



7. Lycium. Diffusely branched shrubs, commonly spiny, with entire leaves. Calyx 3-5- 



toothed or cleft. Corolla 4 - 5-lobed. Berry minutely stalked in the calyx. 



II. Fruit a capsule, but sometimes a fleshy one : corolla plaited in the bud. 

 * Calyx deciduous, leaving a short base under the fruit : seeds large : embryo curved. 



8. Datura. Capsule dry, or somewhat succulent but at length bursting, prickly, 2-celled, and 



the cells incompletely again 2-celled. Corolla convulute as well as plaited (i. e. the plaits 

 convolute) in the bud. 



* * Calyx persistent : seeds small : embryo shorter, straightish. 



9. Nicotiana. Capsule smooth, witli 2 (rarely more) simple cells, splitting at the apex into as 



many valves, and these 2-cleft, mostly enclosed in the tube of the toothed or lobed calyx. 

 10. Petunia. Capsule smooth, 2-celled, simply 2-valved. Calyx 5-parted, with narrow and 

 foliaceous lobes. 



