458 THE POTATO FAMILY. 



THE POTATO FAMILY. 



Solaimcece. 



Through our ra7ige shrubs, herbs or vifies known by their alternate 

 lobed or variously cut leaves and their regular, perfect floivers ivith 

 gamopetalous corollas and equal stamens inserted on the tube, alternate 

 with its lobes. 



More frequently and in more varied forms than many of us know do 

 we come in contact with the family of the potato, or Irish potato as it is 

 called in the south ; the egg-plant, tomato, red pepper and tobacco being 

 also some of its common forms in cultivation. In the garden again the little 

 matrimony vine, Lycium vulgare, and the various species of petunias show 

 us others of its phases. As common wayside weeds, we recognise the 

 stramonium, or thorn apple, Datura stramonium, long ago brought to this 

 country by the Jamestown colonists for its reputed medicinal properties and 

 therefore still known through New England as the Jamestown, or more 

 familiarly, Jimson-weed ; and the apple-of-Peru, Physalodes physalodes, a 

 high-growing weedy herb, with foliage similar to that of the Jimson-weed, 

 has abundantly escaped to the waysides from gardens. 



Many of the members of the potato family are renowned among 

 poisonous plants, the Jimson-weeds and the night-shades being those which 

 have been most notably harmful. 



HORSE=NETTLE. APPLE OF SODOM. {Plate CLI.) 



Sola n mn Ca rolin ensc, 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Potato. Purple or -ivhite. Scentless. Florida to Ontario May-September. 



and westward. 



Flowers: growing in lateral often cyme-like racemes. Calyx : pubescent, five- 

 cleft ; persistent. Corolla: wheel-shaped with five ovate-lanceolate lobes. 

 Stamens: five, filaments very short. Anthers: deep orange, erect and connivent 

 into a cone. Berries: round; deep yellow or orange, smooth. Leaves: ovate- 

 oblong pointed at the apex and squared or tapering at the base into the margined 

 petiole, with deep lobes, spreading at right angles from the midrib, rough and 

 pubescent on both sides and bearing on the under part of the veins sharp-pointed 

 prickles. Stems : erect ; branched, pubescent and bearing many yellow, sharp 

 prickles. 



A weedy, common-enough-looking plant is the horse-nettle as it commonly 

 occurs along roadsides, and therefore it is somewdiat of a surprise when it 

 unfolds its delicate, beautiful flower, — for such is truly its starry bloom, with 

 intensely yellow anthers forming for it a cone-like centre. And in the late 

 autumn when plants are dying and the grass even is pale and limp its still 

 greenish or yellow balls of fruit hang gracefully in their racemes. To the 

 night-shades the plant is closely related, and of its genus a number 

 abound in the western prairies. 



