POTATO FAMILY. Solanaceae. 



Colorado and Texas, reaching an altitude of six thousand 

 feet, and is strongly aromatic when crushed. 



POTATO FAMILY. Solanaceae. 



A large family, widely distributed, most abundant in the 

 tropics. Ours are herbs, shrubs, or vines; leaves alternate, 

 without stipules; flowers perfect, usually regular, in clusters; 

 calyx and corolla usually with five united lobes; stamens on 

 the throat of the corolla, as many as its lobes and alternate 

 with them; ovary superior, two-celled, with a slender 

 style; fruit a berry or capsule, with many seeds. Many 

 important plants, such as Tobacco, Belladonna, Tomato, 

 Egg-plant, Red-pepper, and Potato, belong to this family. 

 Many have a strong odor. 



There are several kinds of Datura, widely distributed; 

 ours are chiefly weed's, coarse, tall, branching herbs, with 

 rank odor and narcotic properties; leaves large, toothed 

 or lobed, with leaf-stalks; flowers large, single, erect, with 

 short stalks, in the forks of the stems; calyx with a long 

 tube and five teeth, the lower part remaining in the form 

 of a collar or rim around the base of the capsule; corolla 

 funnel-form, with a plaited border and broad lobes with 

 pointed tips; stamens with very long, threadlike filaments, 

 but not protruding; style threadlike, with a two-lipped 

 stigma; fruit a large, roundish, usually prickly capsule, 

 giving these plants the common name, Thorn-Apple. 

 Datura is the Hindoo name. 



A handsome and exceedingly conspicu- 

 olguacha, oug pj an ^ forming a large clump of rather 



Large-flowered ' * 



Datura coarse, dark foliage, adorned with many 



Datura meteloldes magnificent flowers. The stout, velvety 

 White stems are bronze-color, from two to four 



Utah ' velvety on the under side, and the flowers 



are sometimes ten inches long, white, 

 tinged with lilac outside, drooping like wet tissue-paper 

 in the heat of the afternoon, and with sweet though heavy 

 scent. I remember seeing a grave in the desert, marked 

 by a wooden cross and separated from a vast waste of sand 

 by clumps of these great white flowers. It grows in valley 



