THE POTATO FAMILY 



SOLANACEiE Persoon 



HIS family consists of about 70 genera, with some 1600 species of herbs, 

 shrubs, vines and some tropical trees, widely distributed throughout 

 the globe, but most abundant in the tropics. Species of this family 

 furnish some valuable and powerful narcotic drugs such as Belladonna, 

 the leaves or root of Atropa Belladonna Linnaeus ; Henbane, the leaves or seeds of 

 Hyoscyamus niger Linnaeus; Stramonium, the leaves or seeds of Datura Stra- 

 monium Linnaeus, and the all enslaving tobacco, the leaves of Nicotiana Tabacum 

 Linnaeus; also a number of food plants as Tomato (Lycopersicum Lycopersicum 

 (Linnaeus) Karsten), Red Peppers, (Capsicum annuum Linnaeus), and the Potato 

 and other products of the genus Solanum; some are highly ornamental. 



The Solanacem have alternate, rarely opposite, entire or variously di\'ided leaves, 

 usually without stipules. The flowers are in cymes, perfect, regular or nearly so. 

 The calyx is free, usually of 5, sometimes 4 or 6, more or less united, mostly per- 

 sistent, often accrescent sepals; the corolla is variously shaped and lobed, com- 

 monly wheel-shaped and 5-lobed; the stamens are all fertile, of the same number 

 as the lobes of the corolla, alternate with them, and joined to its tube, their fila- 

 ments equal or unequal; the anthers are usually elongated and open by pores at 

 the apex; the pistil is compound, the ovary superior, usually 2-celled, the styles 

 terminal and united, the stigmas entire or nearly so, the ovules numerous. The 

 fruit is a fleshy berry or dry capsule with 2 or rarely more cavities; the numer- 

 ous seeds are flattish and crustaceous; the endosperm is fleshy and abundant. 

 One species occasionally become arborescent in our area. 







POTATO TREE 



GENUS SOLANTJM [TOURNEFORT] LINN^US 

 Species Solanum verbascifolium Linnaeus 



HIS has recently been found by Dr. J. K. Small, as a low, flat-headed 

 tree in peninsular Florida and on Elliott's Key, where it attains a 

 height of 7.5 meters, with a trunk diameter of 1.5 dm. It is most 

 often a shrub and as such is frequent in the southern States and 

 throughout the West Indies and tropical America. 



The bark is about 2 mm. thick, close, roughened by roundish, corky excrescences 

 and gray brown in color. The twigs are stout, pithy and very hairy, especially 



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