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- 

 scars lacking. Panicle - vestiges 

 with dried berries often present, 

 extra-axillary and often opposite 

 the leaf-scars above. 



Winter-character references: 

 Solatium 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 Solarium to which the bittersweet belongs. 

 Stems olivaceous, glabrate. (Bittersweet). S. Dulcamara. 



