SOLANUM TORREYI,—TORREY’S SOLANUM, 31 
almost enough for one man. It is also interesting to note that 
the greater part of these are natives of the American Continent. 
They mostly love heat, however, and few species are found able 
to endure the winter of the United States. Dr. Gray has less 
than twenty species in his “Synopsis,” and some of these are 
doubtfully native. 
The name Solanum is a very ancient one, and no one now 
seems to know to what plant it was originally applied, or why 
the name was given to whatever plant it may have been. Don 
says it is “a name given by Pliny, but the derivation is uncer- 
tain. Some derive it from So/, the sun; others say it is Solanum, 
from Sus, being serviceable in disorders of swine; and others 
from So/or, to comfort, from its soothing narcotic effects: all 
these conjectures are, however, improbable.” Some botanists 
have adopted one, some another of these conjectures, but Dr. 
Gray decides the “derivation uncertain.” It may be noted 
however that the first and last suggestions given by Don are 
probably the same, as So/or and So/ are evidently from the same 
root. The Latin poet Virgil evidently uses the word So/ in the 
application to clear soothing weather, and the transition in this 
relation to our word solace is evident enough. Ainsworth in 
his dictionary says positively Solanum is a@ sole, which is Latin 
signifying from the Sun. All that is certainly known is that by 
the name the old Greeks and Romans had in view some sooth- 
ing or narcotic plant, and what were known as “ Nightshades,” 
during the Middle Ages, or at least as far back as we can trace 
botanical knowledge, were associated with So/anum. Tourne- 
fort, about the year 1700, limited the genus as we now have it, 
and Linnzus adopted the name in his “Genera Plantarum,” 
Oe rae a 
Associated as So/anum was with the “ Nightshades” in which 
is the celebrated Atyopa Belladonna, the whole family of Solanum 
was at one time looked on with suspicion. The potato and, for 
the popular purpose we have now in view, the egg-plant and 
tomato, all near enough to the genus to be at one time consid- 
