Solanaceæ

Solanaceæ, or SOLANEE, a natural order of exogenous plants, mainly herbaceous plants and shrubs, but including a few tropical trees. The leaves are mostly alternate, undivided or lobed, without stipules. The flowers are regular, or nearly so; the calyx and corolla generally five-cleft; the stamens generally five. The fruit is either a capsule or a berry, usually two-celled. The plants of this order are mostly natives of tropical countries, a small number extending into the temperate climates; in the coldest regions they are entirely wanting. They are mostly distinguished by an offensive smell and by containing a narcotic, poisonous substance, usually associated with a pungent principle, and some of them are amongst the most active poisons. Sometimes the narcotic substance predominates, as in Mandrake (q.v.) and Henbane (q.v.); sometimes the pungent substance predominates, or is alone present, as in Cayenne Pepper (Capsicum); sometimes both are present in more or less equal proportion, as in Tobacco, Thorn-apple, and Belladonna. The fruit is generally poisonous; but that of a considerable number of species, in which acids and mucilage predominate, is eatable—e.g. the berries of the Winter Cherry and other species of Physalis, of the Egg-plant (q.v.) and some other species of Solanum, and of the Tomato (q.v.). The tubers, which occur in a few species, contain much starch, and serve for food, the Potato being the chief example. The seeds of all contain a fixed oil, which in the south of Germany is expressed from the seeds of the Belladonna itself.