SOLANACEAE (NIGHTSHADE FAMILY) 365 



though the illness caused by eating its ripe fruit is one of exces- 

 sive nausea. (Fig. 254.) 



Stem one to two feet high, round, slender, with spreading 

 branches, when old often showing a purple tinge at the joints. 

 Leaves alternate, long ovate, with slim, grooved petioles, thin, 

 dark green, entire or sometimes wavy-edged, often bitten full of 

 tiny holes by a small flea-beetle which infests the plant and makes 

 it a menace to its relative, the potato. Flowers white, in small, 

 umbellate clusters of three to ten on drooping peduncles springing 

 from the side of the stem ; corolla wheel-shaped, five-lobed, about 

 a quarter-inch broad ; stamens five, with filaments slightly hairy 

 and obtuse anthers united in a cone around the style ; calyx- 

 lobes much shorter, obtuse, spreading, persistent at the base of 

 the berry, which is black, globular, smooth, a little more than 

 a quarter-inch in diameter. 



Means of control 



Being annual the plants are readily destroyed by pulling or close 

 cutting before the first fruits mature. If near maturity throw the 

 plants on the compost heap, where fermentation will destroy the 

 vitality of the seed ; or burn them. 



HORSE NETTLE 

 Solanum carolinense, L. 



Other English names : Sand Brier, Bull Nettle, Bull Thistle, Apple of 



Sodom, Tread-soft. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks. 

 Time of bloom: May to September. 

 Seed-time: July to November. 

 Range: Massachusetts, Connecticut, and southern Ontario, to Iowa 



and Kansas, southward to Florida and Texas. 

 Habitat : Meadows, pastures, and cultivated ground ; invades all 



crops. 



A near relative of the potato and one of the worst weeds native to 

 this country ; southern in its origin but rapidly making its way 

 northward and westward through the agencies of impure clover 

 seed and baled hay. The deep-seated rootstocks are most tena- 

 cious of life ; an Indiana farmer states that they " will live ten years 



