Solanum. SOLANACE^. 227 



one, and the peduncles also extra-axillary or lateral. Flowers cymose, mostly 

 after the scorpioid manner, or by unilateral suppression in appearance racemose, 

 or rarely solitary, sometimes polygamous through the abortion of the pistil of 

 many of the flowers. A vast genus, generally diffused over the temperate and 

 warmer parts of the world, but sparingly represented in North America. 



S. VikginiAnum, L. (founded on Dill. Elth. t. 267, and Pluk. Aim. t. 62, fig. 3), is some 

 one of the very prickly exotic species and not of Virginian origin. 



S. MAMMOSUM, L., a West Indian species, attributed to Virginia by Linnaeus and succeed- 

 ing authors, is unknown " in the country. The less hairy 5. aculeatissimum may sometimes 

 have been taken for it. In Chapman's Flora a form of S. Melongena seems to represent it. 



S. TexAnum, Dunal in DC. Prodr. xiii. 359, is probably not Texan, although raised from 

 seed said to have been collected there. It is a plant of the Melongena (Aubergine or Egg- 

 Plant) type, and is probably S. integrifolium, Poir. (S. uEthiopicum, Jacq. Vind. t. 2, not L.), 

 and according to Tenore his S. Lobelii. It has a 7-8-clef t calyx, and the fruit (from a solitary 

 fertile flower) 5-10-ceIled. 



S. FloridAnum, Dunal, 1. c. 306, taken up from an imperfect specimen so named by Shut- 

 tleworth in herb. DC, collected by Rugel at St. Mark's, Florida, is not identified, is prob- 

 ably some waif of ballast ground, and, having long-hairy and retrorse-prickly stems and 

 pinnately parted leaves, cannot be a variety of S. Carolinense, to which Chapman referred it. 



§ 1. Fruit naked, i. e. not enclosed in the accrescent calyx (in one species 

 somewhat so) : stamens all alike. 



* Tuberiferous-perennial, pinnate-leaved : anthers blunt. 



S. tuberosum, L. (Potato-plant), var. boreale. Low, more or less pubescent : tubers 

 about half an inch in diameter, sending off long creeping subterranean stolons : leaflets 

 5 to 7, ovate or oval, and with only one or two interposed small ones, or sometimes none 

 at all: peduncle few-flowered: corolla blue or sometimes white, angulate-5-lobed. — S. 

 Fendleri, Gray in Am. Jour. Sci. ser..2, xxii. 285; Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 151. — New 

 Mexico, especially in the mountains, and southward : apparently not specifically distinct 

 from the Potato-plant, which extends along the Andes to Chili and Buenos Ayres. 



S. Jamesii, Torr. Low, a span or so in height: leaflets 5 to 9, varying from lanceolate 

 to ovate-oblong, smoothish ; the lowest sometimes much smaller, but no interposed small 

 ones : peduncle cymosely few-several-flowered : corolla white, at length deeply 5-cIeft : 

 otherwise as in the last. — Ann. Lye. N. Y. ii. 227; Gray, 1. c. — Mountains of Colorado 

 to New Mexico and Arizona. (Mexico, probably under several names.) Seems on the 

 whole distinct ; but Fendler's no. 669 belongs here, at least in part. 



* * Annuals (at least in our climate), simple-leaved, never prickly, but the angles of the stem 



sometimes minutely denticulate-asperate : anthers blunt: pubescence when present simple: 



flowers and globose berries small. 



^— Leaves deeply pinnatifid. 

 S. triflorum, Nutt. Green, slightly hairy or nearly glabrous, low and much spreading : 

 leaves oblong and pinnatifid, with wide rounded sinuses ; the lobes 7 to 9, lanceolate, 3 or 

 4 lines long, entire or sometimes 1-2-toothed : peduncles lateral, 1-3-flowercd : pedicels nod- 

 ding : corolla small, white, a little longer than the 5-parted calyx : berries green, as large 

 as a small cherry. — Gen. i. 128. — Plains from Saskatchewan to New Mexico, chiefly as a 

 weed near habitations and in cultivated ground. 

 -) 1— Leaves varj'ing from coarsely toothed to entire: flowers in small pedunculate umbel-like 



lateral cymes: corolla white and sometimes bluish: berries usually black when ripe, rarely red or 



yellowish, only as large as peas. (Section Morella, Dunal.) 

 S. nigrum, L. Low, green and almost glabrous, or the younger parts pubescent: 

 leaves mostly ovate with a cuneate base, irregularly sinuate-toothed, repand, or some- 

 times entire, acute or acuminate : calyx much shorter than the corolla. ^^ Includes many 

 and perhaps most of the 50 and more species of Dunal in the Prodromus, weeds or weedy 

 plants, widely diffused over the world, especially the warmer portions. A. Braun's charac- 

 ters for several species, founded on the hairiness or smoothness of the filaments, length 

 of the anthers and of the style, and whether the calyx is loosely appresscd to the ripe 

 berry or reflexed, do not hold out. Our common form, the true S. nigrum, has corolla only 



