293 
Alliance V. SOLANALES. 
Essential Character. — Flowers symmetrical, but sometimes irregular. Carpels 2, 
parallel with the axis of inflorescence O. Seeds with an embryo lying in the midst of 
albumen. 
Order CCXVIII. SOLANACE^. The Nightshade Tribe. 
SoLANE.E, Juss. Gen. 124. (1789) ; R. Brown Prodr. 443. (1810) ; Lindl. Synops. 180. 
(1829) ; Rartl. Ord. Nat. 193.’ (1830) ; Schlecht in Linncea. 7. 66. (1832) ; Nees 
V. Esenbeck in Linn. Trans. 17. 37. (1834). 
Essential Character. — Calyx 5-parted, seldom 4-parted, persistent, inferior. Corolla 
monopetalous, hypogynous; the/im& 5-cleft, seldom 4-cleft, regular, or somewhat unequal, 
deciduous ; the aestivation plaited or imbricated. Stamens inserted upon the corolla, as 
many as the segments of the limb, with which they are alternate ; anthers bursting longi- 
tudinally, rarely by pores at the apex. Ovary 2-celled, rarely 4- or many-celled, with 2 
polyspermous placentae; style continuous ; stigma simple. Pericarp with 2, or 4, or many 
cells, either a capsule with a double dissepiment parallel with the valves, or a berry with 
the placentae adhering to the dissepiment. Seeds numerous, sessile ; embryo straight or 
curved, often out of the centre, lying in a fleshy albumen ; radicle next the hilum. — Her- 
baceous plants or shrubs. Leaves alternate, undivided, or lobed, sometimes collateral ; the 
floral ones sometimes double, and placed near each other. Inflorescence variable, often out 
of the axil ; the pedicels without bracts. 
Anomalies. The anthers of Solanum open by pores. Nicotiana multivalvis has many 
cells in the capsule, so has Lycopersicon, Nicandra is 5-celled, Datura 4-celled. 
Affinities. Brown remarks, that this order is chiefly known from Scro- 
phulariacese by the curved or spiral embryo, the plaited aestivation of the co- 
rolla, and the flowers being usually regular, with the same number of stamens 
as lobes. Hence the genera with a corolla not plaited, and at the same time 
a straight embryo, should either be excluded, or placed in a separate section, 
along with such as have an imbricated corolla, a slightly curved embryo, and 
didynamous stamens. Prodr. 444. It does not, however, appear necessary 
to separate the latter as a distinct order, but it is better to understand them as 
genera passing into the condition of Scrophulariacese, which are in fact no- 
thing but unsymmetrical Solanaceee. Upon this subject I have the following 
remarks in the Botanical Register : — 
The general mode of distinguishing Solanaceee from Scrophulariacese is by 
the very obscure character of the curved embryo of the former. It is true 
that Brown adds to this a plaited corolla, and stamens equal in number to the 
segments of the corolla and calyx ; but it is plain that he considers these less 
absolute than the curved embryo, because he admits such plants as Anthocer- 
cis, which has didynamous stamens and an imbricated corolla, placing them 
indeed in a distinct section, but still referring them to Solanaceae. Bartling 
in his valuable work on the Natural Orders of Plants, does not adopt this view, 
but attaches only a subordinate importance to the form of embryo, and makes 
the distinction between the two orders depend upon the plaited corolla and 
symmetrical flowers of Solanacese, as contrasted with the imbricated corolla 
and didynamous flowers of Scrophulariaceae. Hooker adopts Brown’s opinion, 
as I have also myself in the first edition of this work, and Arnott does the 
same, but with some misgivings as to its being right. In the Nixus Planta- 
rum, I followed Bartling, abandoning my former view of the matter. 
There can be only one reason for such a character as the curved embryo be- 
ing adopted, in preference to all others, as an absolute distinction between t^wo 
nearly allied orders, and that must be its uniformly accompanying other es • 
^ential points of structure. How far this is the case will be apparent from 
