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VIII. On the Esculent Egg Plants. By Mr. Andrew 

 Mathews, A. L. S. 



Read December 19, 1826. 



The fruit of Solanum esculentum, though but little used 

 in this country, is considered as an esculent of much excel- 

 lence within the Tropics, as well as in the South of Europe. 

 M. Dunal informs * us, that about Montpelier it is sown in 

 the beginning of spring, and produces abundance of fruit 

 towards the middle of summer, and continues till the end of 

 October to supply the tables of both the rich and poor. 

 Until the publication of M. Dunal's History of the Solanums, 

 in 1813, the Esculent Egg Plants were considered as varieties 

 of the Solanum Melongena of Linnaeus. This name is now 

 referred exclusively to the Ornamental Egg Plants of our 

 stoves, the white variety of which is commonly cultivated as 

 a hot-house annual, and is never applied to culinary pur- 

 poses. Those which are so used, were placed by M. Dunal 

 as a separate species under the name of S. esculentum,f of 

 which he makes four varieties. The particular kinds I am 

 now treating of, are referable to the first and second varieties 

 of Dunal, though I doubt whether all the references and 

 synonyms applied to them by him are strictly correct. The 

 third and fourth varieties, one with spiny black fruit, and the 

 other with perfectly round fruit, are derived only from the 



• See Dunal, Histoire des Solanum, page 102. f Ibid, page 208. 



