380 SOLANACE^E. (NIGHTSHADE FAMILY.) 



Order 76. SOL.ANACE^E. (Nightshade Family.) 



Herbs (or rarely shrubs), with a colorless juice and alternate leaves, regu- 

 lar 5-merous and b-androus flowers, on bractless pedicels ; the corolla imbri- 

 cate, convolute, or valvate in the bud, and mostly plaited ; the fruit a 2-celled 

 (rarely 3 - b-celled) many-seeded pod or berry. — Seeds campylotropous or 

 amphitropous. Embryo mostly slender and curved in fleshy albumen. 

 Calyx usually persistent. Stamens mostly equal, inserted on the corolla. 

 Style and stigma single. Placentae in the axis, often projecting far into 

 the cells. (Foliage rank-scented, and with the fruits mostly narcotic, 

 often very poisonous, while some are edible.) — A large family in the 

 tropics, but very few indigenous in our district. It shades off into Scro- 

 phulariaceae, from which the plaited regular corolla and 5 equal stamens 

 generally distinguish it. 



* Corolla wheel-shaped, 5-parted or 5-lobed ; the lobes valvate and their margins usually 

 turned inwards in the bud. Anthers connivent. Fruit a berry. 



1. Solauum. Anthers opening by pores or chinks at the tip. 



* * Corolla various, not wheel-shaped, nor valvate in the bud. Anthers separate. 

 h- Fruit a berry, enclosed in the bladdery -inflated calyx. Corolla widely expanding. 



2. Physalis. Calyx 5 -cleft. Corolla 5-lobed or nearly entire. Berry juicy, 2-celled. 



3. Nicandra. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla nearly entire. Berry diy, 3-5-celled. 



h- -»- Fruit a berry with the unaltered calyx persistent at its base. 



4. Lycium. Corolla funnel-form or tubular, not plaited. Berry small, 2-celled. 



+- -»- -<- Fruit a pod. 



5. Hyoscyamus. Calyx urn-shaped, enclosing the smooth 2-celled pod, which opens by 



the top falling off as a lid. Corolla and stamens somewhat irregular. 



6. Datura. Calyx prismatic, 5-toothed. Pod prickly, naked, more or less 4-celled,4-valved. 



Corolla funnel-form. 



7. Nicoliana. Calyx tubular-bell-shaped, 5-cleft. Pod enclosed in the calyx, 2-celled. 



1. SOLATIUM, Tourn. Nightshade. 



Calyx and the wheel-shaped corolla 5-parted or 5-cleft (rarely 4-10-parted), 

 the latter plaited in the bud, and valvate or induplicate. Stamens exserted : 

 filaments very short : anthers converging around the style : opening at the tip 

 by two pores or chinks. Berry usually 2-celled. — Herbs, or shrubs in warm 

 climates, the larger leaves often accompanied by a smaller lateral (rameal) one; 

 the peduncles also mostly lateral and extra-axillary. —A vast genus, chiefly in 

 the warmer regions, including the Potato (S. tuber6sum) and the Egg- 

 plant (S. Melongena) ; while the Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum) 

 is hardly of a distinct genus. (Name of unknown derivation.) 



# Anthers blunt. (Plants not prickly, smooth or nearly so.) 



1. S. Dulcamara, L. (Bittersweet.) Stem shrubby , scarcely climbing ; 

 leaves orate-heart-shaped, the upper halberd-shaped, or with two ear-like lobes at the 

 base; flowers (purple or blue) in small cymes ; berries oval, red. — Moist banks 

 and around dwellings. June -Sept. (Nat. from Eu.) 



2. S. nigrum, L. (Common Nightshade.) Annual, low, much branched 

 and often spreading, rough on the angles; leaves ovate, wavy-toothed ; flowers 



