124 THE INDIANA WEED BOOK. 



The Potato Family.— SOLANACEJE. 



Chiefly herbs with alternate leaves and colorless juice. Flowers 

 regular, usually in cymes; calyx attached to the ovary, 5-lobed; 

 petals united into a wheel-shaped, funnel-form, bell-shaped or 

 tubular 5-lobed corolla, the lobes folded in the bud ; stamens 5, in- 

 serted on the tube of the corolla and alternate with its lobes. Fruit 

 usually a 2-celled, many-seeded capsule or a berry. 



A large family in the tropics but very few native to North 

 America. Among cultivated forms are the potato, tomato, red pep- 

 per, tobacco and egg-plant; all of these except the last natives of 

 South or Central America and introduced from there to Europe. 

 Potatoes from South America were introduced into England in 1586 

 and into Ireland in 1610, where they long furnished three-fifths or 

 more of the entire food of the people, and so gained the name of 

 Irish potato. Of the tobacco, Dr. Win. Darlington, a noted botanist 

 of Pennsylvania, wrote in 1847: "The extent to which this 

 nauseous and powerfully narcotic plant is cultivated — its com- 

 mercial importance — and the modes in which it is employed to 

 gratify the senses — constitute, altogether, one of the most remark- 

 able traits in the history of civilized man. Were we not so practi- 

 cally familiar with the business, we should, doubtless, be disposed 

 to regard the whole story of the tobacco trade, and the uses made 

 of the herb as an absurd and extravagant fable. In view of the 

 facts and circumstances, it does seem like sheer affectation on our 

 part, to pretend to be astonished at the indulgence of the Chinese 

 in the use of opium. The habitual use of tobacco is always more 

 or less injurious to the system — especially the nervous system — 

 and in many instances it is highly deleterious. I speak from long 

 observation, and a personal experience of many years, having 

 smoked and chewed the herb, until its pernicious effects compelled 

 me to es-chew it altogether." Although not a user of the weed, 

 the writer heartily endorses every word of the above statement. 



About 20 species of the potato family grow wild in Indiana, 

 several of which have escaped from cultivation. Among them are 

 the ground cherries, nightshades, horse nettles and jimson- weeds. 

 These include several weeds of the first class. 



90. Piiysalis pubescens L. Low Hairy Ground-Cherry. Strawberry To- 

 mato. (A. \. 2.) 

 Stem spreading, angled, much branched, more or less velvety hairy; 

 leaves thin, ovate, pointed, entire or sparingly toothed, flowers solitary, 

 axillarj ; calyx bell-shaped, 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate, as long, as the 

 tube; corolla about ' inch broad, bell-shaped, dull yellow with a purplish 

 center. Fruiting calyx rather small, cone-shaped, sharply 5-angled, sunken 



