Solatium Cavolinense. 87 



Plant from one foot to two feet high. Stem herbaceous, rigid, 

 branched. Branches spreading. Stem and branches armed with 

 sharp prickles and densely beset with stellated hairs. Leaves large, 

 ovate-sinuated, or ovate-lanceolate, entire at base, deeply sinuated — 

 the angles somewhat acute; scabrous, covered all over with the same 

 dense stellated hairiness which covers the whole plant, but hardly 

 tomentose. The veins and costa armed with prickles. Racemes 

 loose, simple, lateral and terminal, from four to eight -flowered. 

 Calix closely beset with fine hairs, and prickly. Corolla expanding 

 as common in the genus, pale-blue — blue variegated with blotches 

 of white, — or wholly of a faded- white colour. Stamens and pistil of 

 a golden-yellow hue. Berries the size of large May-duke cherries, 

 ochre-yellow, and frequently persistent during winter. Flowers 

 from May until August. Grows in cultivated grounds from Canada 

 to Georgia, appearing to prefer sandy soil, near road sides and rub- 

 bish in the vicinity of habitations. Very common. Annual or 

 perennial? 



The genus Solanum is one of those very ancient assemblages of 

 plants, designated by terms, the origin of which is either enveloped 

 in obscurity, or lost in the antiquity of their use. It comprises plants 

 very naturally grouped together, by strikingbotanical affinities. The 

 American species are but six or seven, of which the one here figured 

 is perhaps the most common. It is, indeed, except the S. nigrum, 

 the only indigenous species found in the middle and northern states, 



