SOLANUMS 



potting compost for these will be found in a 

 and loam. C. arvensis and C. vuiuritanicu 

 subjects for hanging baskets. 

 Degcription of Convolvulus tricolor, or Min 



Plate 197. size. Fig. 1, a flower in section ; 2 

 enlarged ; 3, a seedling. 



SOLANUMS 



Natural Order Solanace^. Genus Solanuni 



SoLANUM (the classical Latin name used by Pliny ; meaning unknown). 

 An enormous genus (about seven hundred species) of herbs and shrubs with 

 a few trees, with leaves scattered, or in nearly opposite pairs. The flowers 

 are yellow, white, purplish, or blue. Calyx with from five to ten teeth ; 

 corolla wheel-shaped with five to ten lobes. The five stamens are attached 

 to the throat of the corolla, the anthers project, all in contact, around the 

 style. Fruit a two-celled (rarely four-celled) berry, containing many 

 kidney-shaped seeds. The species are mostly Tropical, especially plentiful 

 in America ; two British. 



This is a most interesting genus to consider. It con- 

 tains a large number of plants that are virulently poisonous, 

 and several that are exceedingly valuable food-plants, including the 

 l?ot&to,Solanumtuberosum,Sind the Aubergine or Egg-plant, (S-il/eZo^i^gTia. 

 In other countries many other species are eaten, such as S. av iculare, the 

 Tasmanian Kangaroo-apple, and corresponding forms in their native 

 countries. One of them, 8. aiithropophagorum, has a gruesome interest 

 attached to it, by reason of its berries having been a favourite accom 

 paniment to a dinner of human flesh in the unregenerate days of the 

 Fijians, S. pseudo-capsicum, the Jerusalem Cherry, was in cultivation 

 in this country three centuries ago, having been introduced from Madeira. 

 S. Melongena, the Egg-plant, was known here as far back as 1597, as 

 also was 8. mthiopicwni. Several species not now in cultivation were 

 introduced during the seventeenth century, but most of those now grown 

 are of much more recent date. ;S. rtiarginatum was brought from 

 Abyssinia in 1775, S. pyracanthum from Madagascar in 1789, and S, 

 giganteum from India in 1792 ; S. seaforthianum from the West Indies 

 in 1804; 8. crispum from Chili, 1824; aS. Jasminoides from South 

 America, 1838 ; 8. atropiirpureum from Brazil, 1870 ; and 8, robustum, 

 also from Brazil, in 1878. 



