96 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
green, glabrous, or with the branches of the year, petioles, leaves, 
and peduncles more or less shortly pubescent. 
Var. 3 differs much in habit, having the stems short, much 
branched, prostrate, with the branches of the year fleshy ; the 
leaves have shorter stalks, and are generally without the segments 
at the base, though these are occasionally present ; the calyx-seg- 
ments are rather more acute, but both forms vary in this respect ; 
the young leaves and stems vary from glabrous to pubescent, as in 
var. a. 
TVoocly Nightshade. 
French, Morelle Douce-amere. German, Bittersilss. 
The family of plants to which this species belongs has been long considered to be 
poisonous in its qualities, and until lately but little distinction has been made between 
the effects of different species. Dr. Garrod, the Professor of Materia Medica at King's 
College, London, considers all the Solanums as perfectly innocuous, and has performed 
a number of experiments to prove his theory. It is, however, very unsafe to allow the 
berries of any of these plants to be eaten, and we think — although it is well not to 
allow false notions to continue with regard to the active properties of plants — it is also 
wise to forbid children and young people from eating any wild fruits about which there 
may be doubts. The older physicians valued the Bitter-sweet, as this plant is called, 
and applied it to many purposes in medicine and surgery. Gerarde says, "The juice 
is good for those that have fallen from high places, and have been thereby bruised or 
dry beaten, for it is thought to dissolve bloud congealed or cluttered anywhere in the 
intrals, and to heale the hurt places." Boerhaave considered the young shoots superior 
to sarsaparilla as a restorative; and Linnaeus speaks of it in the highest terms as a 
remedy for rheumatism, fever, and inflammatory diseases. It is a curious fact that our 
universally-eaten potato should belong to a family of plants about which there is so 
much bu tpicion. For some time Linnseus objected to its use on account of its connec- 
tions ; but, although we believe illness has resulted from taking the water in which 
I lie roots have been boiled, the potato itself is one of our most valuable articles of diet, 
and we can but recall with gratitude the transplantation of this useful root from 
Virginia in 1584, by Sir Walter Raleigh, on to his estate near Youghall, in Ireland, 
little thinking though he did, that it would one day become the chief subsistence of a 
large portion of his countrymen. In some counties this plant is called the Deadly 
Nightshade, and Mr. Bentham has thus named it in his "Handbook of the British 
Flora." This term, however, ought to be applied only to the Atropa Belladonna. 
SPECIES II.— SOL AN UM NIGRUM. Linn. 
Plates DCCCCXXXI. DCCCCXXX1T. 
Rootstock none. Stem herbaceous. Leaves rhomboid-ovate, 
repand-dentate or sinuate-dentate, acute. Cymes umbellate- 
corymbose, produced from the upper part of the internodes. 
Flowers 3 to 7, slightly drooping*. Corolla deeply 5-cleft ; seg- 
ments triangular, very slightly reflexed at the apex. Berries 
drooping, globular, obtuse. 
