FERNALD, — MEXICAN SOLANUMS. 557 
1 
IlL— A REVISION OF THE MEXICAN AND CENTRAL 
AMERICAN SOLANUMS OF THE SUBSECTION 
TORVARIA.. 
Dunal’s subsection Zorvaria of the genus Solanum has never been 
understood in America. Almost without exception the many diverse 
forms from equally diverse regions have been in American herbaria 
placed under the type species Solanum torvum, Swartz. This treatment 
as a single polymorphous species of all the plants of similar subgeneric 
character,—a course by no means without precedent in other sections 
of Solanum and scores of other tropical American genera, — has been 
due to a lack of authentic material and of any more concise statement of 
the specific characters than can be found in the rather ponderous mono- 
graph of Dunal. An accumulation of specimens from many sources has 
made it possible to divide the Mexican material passing in the Gray 
Herbarium as Solanum torvum into species of marked morphological 
characters and restricted geographical ranges. Most of these plants 
thus separated are found to agree very well with the descriptions of 
different species recognized from Mexico by Dunal in his monograph, 
though three species there characterized have not yet been identified with 
modern herbarium material. Doubtless these identifications of modern 
Mexican specimens with the old descriptions cannot all be taken as 
final, and a study of the type specimens, when it is possible to examine 
them, may prove the present conclusions to be in some cases inaccurate. 
Yet confidence is felt that the present understanding of the group is 
much clearer than that which has prevailed among recent students of 
Mexican botany. With the hope of simplifying the future study of the 
group the following synopsis is presented of the Mexican species of the 
section as now interpreted. 
* Pubescence of flowering branches densely stellate-tomentose, hairs short and 
fine. 
+ Pedicels bearing simple gland-tipped hairs among the stellate ones. (See also 
S. ochraceo-ferrugineum.) 
S. Torvum, Swartz. Branches slightly armed, canescent-ochraceous, 
the young parts, especially, ochraceous: leaves subcordate-ovate, shal- 
lowly sinuate-lobed, olive-green and stellate-scabrous above, canescent 
and stellate-tomentose beneath, 1 to 1.5 dm. long, 6 to 12 cm. broad, 
often sparingly armed on the midrib beneath, more rarely so above: 
