A large family, widely distributed, most abundant in the tropics.
Ours are herbs, shrubs, or vines; leaves alternate, without stipules;
flowers perfect, usually regular, in clusters; calyx and corolla
usually with five united lobes; stamens on the throat of the corolla,
as many as its lobes and alternate with them; ovary superior,
two-celled, with a slender style; fruit a berry or capsule, with many
seeds. Many important plants, such as Tobacco, Belladonna, Tomato,
Egg-plant, Red-pepper, and Potato, belong to this family. Many have a
strong odor.
There are several kinds of Datura, widely distributed; ours are chiefly
weeds, coarse, tall, branching herbs, with rank odor and narcotic
properties; leaves large, toothed or lobed, with leaf-stalks; flowers
large, single, erect, with short stalks, in the forks of the stems;
calyx with a long tube and five teeth, the lower part remaining in
the form of a collar or rim around the base of the capsule; corolla
funnel-form, with a plaited border and broad lobes with pointed tips;
stamens with very long, threadlike filaments, but not protruding; style
threadlike, with a two-lipped stigma; fruit a large, roundish, usually
prickly capsule, giving these plants the common name, Thorn-Apple.
Datura is the Hindoo name.
[Sidenote: =Tolguacha, Large-flowered Datura=
_Datùra meteloìdes_
=White
Spring, summer
Southwest, Nev., Utah=]
A handsome and exceedingly conspicuous plant, forming a large clump of
rather coarse, dark foliage, adorned with many magnificent flowers. The
stout, velvety stems are bronze-color, from two to four feet high, the
leaves are dark green, velvety on the under side, and the flowers are
sometimes ten inches long, white, tinged with lilac outside, drooping
like wet tissue-paper in the heat of the afternoon, and with sweet
though heavy scent. I remember seeing a grave in the desert, marked
by a wooden cross and separated from a vast waste of sand by clumps
of these great white flowers. It grows in valley lands, reaching
an altitude of six thousand feet. It is used as a narcotic by the
Indians and resembles _D. stramònium_, Jimson-weed, from Asia, common
in the East and found also in the West, but it is far handsomer. _D.
suaveòlens_, Floriponda or Angels' Trumpets, is a large shrub, with
very large, pendulous, creamy flowers, and is often cultivated in the
old mission gardens in California. The flowers are very fragrant at
night.
[Illustration: Tolguacha--Datura meteloides.]
There are many kinds of Physalis, most of them American, difficult to
distinguish; herbs, often slightly woody below; flowers whitish or
yellowish; corolla more or less bell-shaped, with a plaited border;
style slender, somewhat bent, with a minutely two-cleft stigma. In
fruit the calyx becomes large and inflated, papery, angled and ribbed,
wholly enclosing the pulpy berry, which contains numerous, flat,
kidney-shaped seeds. The name is from the Greek, meaning "bladder," and
refers to the inflated calyx, and the common names, Ground-cherry and
Strawberry-tomato, are suggested by the fruit, which is juicy, often
red or yellow, and in some kinds is edible.
[Sidenote: =Ground-cherry=
_Phýsalis crassifòlia_
=Yellow
Southwest=]
A pretty, delicate, desert plant, from six to eight inches high, with
branching stems and light green leaves. It is sprinkled with pretty
cream-yellow flowers, which are not spotted or dark in the center,
with yellow anthers, and is hung with odd little green globes, each
about three-quarters of an inch long, which are the inflated calyxes
containing the berries.
[Sidenote: =Bladder-cherry=
_Phsýalis Féndleri_
=Yellow
Summer
Ariz., Utah=]
A straggling perennial plant, about a foot high, with widely-branching,
roughish stems, springing from a deep tuberous root. The leaves are
dull green, roughish, rather coarse in texture, but not large, mostly
less than an inch long, coarsely and irregularly toothed, and the
flowers are the shape of a shallow Morning-glory, half an inch across,
pale dull-yellow, marked with brown inside, with yellow anthers. This
does not bear its berries close to the ground, as do many of its
relations, and is not pretty. It grows in dry places, reaching an
altitude of eight thousand feet.
[Illustration: Ground-cherry--Physalis crassifolia.]
There are a great many kinds of Solanum, abundant in tropical America;
herbs or shrubs, sometimes climbing; often downy; calyx wheel-shaped,
with five teeth or lobes, corolla wheel-shaped, the border plaited,
with five angles or lobes and a very short tube; anthers sometimes
grouped to form a cone, filaments short; fruit a berry, either enclosed
in the calyx or with the calyx remaining on its base. This is the Latin
name of the Nightshade, meaning "quieting."
[Sidenote: =Purple Nightshade=
_Solànum Xánti_
=Purple
Spring, summer
California=]
This is much handsomer than most of the eastern Nightshades, hairy and
sticky, with several spreading stems, from one to three feet high,
springing from a perennial root, with thin, roughish leaves, more or
less toothed. In favorable situations the flowers are beautiful, each
about an inch across, and form handsome loose clusters. The corolla
is saucer-shaped, bright purple, with a ring of green spots in the
center, bordered with white and surrounding the bright yellow cone
formed by the anthers. The berry is pale green or purple, the size of a
small cherry. This is sometimes sweet-scented and is very fine on Mt.
Lowe and elsewhere in southern California, but is paler and smaller
in Yosemite. Blue Witch, _S. umbellíferum_, is very similar, more
woody below, with deep green stems, shorter branches, smaller, thicker
leaves, and a dull white or purplish berry. It grows in the foothills
of the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada Mountains and flowers chiefly in
summer, but more or less all through the year.
[Sidenote: =Nightshade=
_Solànum Douglásii_
=White
Spring, summer
Southwest=]
A branching plant, about two feet high and across, with roughish stems
and thin, smooth or slightly hairy, dark green leaves, toothless, or
the margins more or less coarsely toothed. The flowers are white,
tinged with lilac, with a purplish ring surrounding the yellow cone
formed by the anthers. In southern California the flowers are nearly
half an inch across, but smaller elsewhere. The berries are black. This
is common throughout California near the coast. _S. nìgrum_, the common
Nightshade, is a weed in almost all countries, common in waste places
and in cultivated soil, and has small white flowers and black berries,
about as large as peas and said to be poisonous.
[Illustration: Purple Nightshade--Solanum Xanti.]
There are many kinds of Nicotiana, or Tobacco, chiefly American;
acrid, narcotic herbs or shrubs, usually sticky-hairy; leaves large,
toothless; corolla funnel-form or salver-form, with a long tube and
spreading border, plaited in the bud; stamens with threadlike filaments
and broad anthers, not protruding; capsule smooth, containing numerous
small seeds. The name is in honor of Nicot, diplomat and author of the
first French dictionary, who sent some of these plants to Catherine de'
Medici from Portugal in 1560.
[Sidenote: =San Juan Tree, Tree Tobacco=
_Nicotiàna glaùca_
=Yellow
Spring
Southwest=]
A very slender, loosely-branching evergreen shrub, from six to fifteen
feet high, with graceful, swaying branches and smooth, thick leaves,
with a "bloom," the lower leaves eight inches long. The flowers are
nearly two inches long, greenish at first and then becoming a rather
pretty shade of warm dull-yellow, and hang in graceful clusters from
the ends of the branches. The calyx is unequally five-toothed, the tube
of the corolla downy on the outside; the anthers whitish; the ovary
on a yellowish disk, with a long style and two-lobed stigma, and the
capsule oblong, half an inch long. This was introduced into California
from South America about fifty years ago and is now common in waste
places and cultivated valleys.
There are many kinds of Lycium, shrubs or woody vines, named for the
country Lycia.
[Sidenote: =Desert Matrimony=
_Lycium Còoperi_
=White
Spring
Southwest=]
An odd-looking desert shrub, everything about it so closely crowded
as to give a queer bunchy and clumsy effect. It is three or four feet
high, with thick, dark gray, gnarled, woody branches, crowded with
tufts of small, dull, light green leaves, which are thickish, stiffish,
obscurely downy and toothless, and mingled with close little bunches
of flowers. The flowers are about half an inch long, with a large,
yellowish, hairy calyx, with five lobes, a white corolla, which is
slightly hairy outside, with five lobes and a narrow, greenish tube,
and pale yellow anthers, not protruding. They are rather pretty near
by, but the appearance of the whole shrub is too pale to be effective.
The familiar Matrimony Vine of old-fashioned gardens belongs to this
genus.
[Illustration: San Juan Tree--Nicotiana glauca.