SOLAN UM MELONGENA. 



31 



SOLANUM MELONGENA, Linn. 



{Vide Plate XCV.] 



Brinjal, mad-apple, or egg-plant; baigan, baingan, bhata (Hind.) ; banga, bangana (Sans.). 



Natural order Solanacece. A perennial herb, prickly or unarmed. Leaves ovate, sinuate, or 

 lobed, clothed beneath with stellate hairs. Flowers bluish, arranged in extra-axillary cymes, 

 usually only the lowest on the cyme becoming fertilized. Fruit or berry round, oval, or elong- 

 ate-cylindrical. 



The original home of this plant has not been ascertained with certainty. Accord- 

 ing to DeCandolle it is a native of Asia. It has not been found truly wild in India, 

 though often met with as an escape from cultivation, in which condition it becomes 

 much more prickly and more prolific as to the number of fruits. Other authors believe 

 it to be of Arabian origin. 



Many varieties of this very useful vegetable are cultivated in these Provinces. 

 They differ chiefly in the shape and size of the fruit. The kinds usually met with in 

 native gardens have oval or cylindrical fruits of a deep purple colour or are variously 

 mottled. Mar u baingan with long and thick fruits is considered to be the best 

 variety. Another kind called batiya has long thin fruits. This latter is probably 

 Koxburgh's S. hngum. 



The seeds are sown at the beginning of the rainy season in ordinary garden soil, 

 and the fruits are ready for use from August and all through the cold weather. On 

 the hills the seed is sown in April and May, and the fruit is obtainable during the 

 autumn months. Although perennial, it is invariably treated as an annual ; for, like 

 the capsicums, it is less productive after the first year. 



In North-West India Mr. Gollan states that three sowings are made during the 

 year, viz., about the end of October, from the middle of February to the end of March, 

 and early in the rainy season. In October the seed is sown broadcast in beds, and the 

 seedlings have to be protected by grass thatch from the winter cold. They are trans- 

 planted about the middle of February into highly manured ground in rows 18 inches 

 apart and 15 inches from plant to plant. The produce of this crop is available from the 

 end of March to the commencement of the rains. The produce of the February sow- 

 ing is ready for use about the end of May and all through the rainy season, and that of 

 the rainy season sowing is available during the early autumn months. The most prolific 



'References :— PI. Or. Ind.,lV., 235 ; Roxb ,F1. Ind. (Clarke's Ed.), 190 ; Atkinson, Econom.Prod. N-W. Pror., V., 

 20 ; Him. Disk, I., 703, 750 ; Wright, Mem. Agri. Cawnpore, 65 ; DC, L'Orig. PI, Cult., 229 ; Yule and Burnell, Gloss , 87. 

 S. insanum and longum, Roxb., El. Ind. (Clarke's Ed.), 190, 191. Rhccde, Hort. Mai., II., t. 37 ; X., t. 74. Kuxnph., Ilerb. 

 Amb., V., tt. 85 and 86. 



