solan am

[Latin a kind of nightshade, Solanum nigrum. (See def.)] Bot.: Nightshade; the typical genus of Solanaceae. Herbs or shrubs, rarely trees. Flowers in or above the forks of the stem, solitary, fascicled, or cymose, white or blue; calyx with four to ten segments, corolla rotate, five to ten lobed, with five exserted stamens, anthers opening by two pores at the extremity; berry roundish, two or more celled, with many reniform seeds. Known species between 500 and 600, most of them from the tropics, others from temperate climes. The foliage of S. dulcamara is narcotic, and its berries are unsafe to eat. In India it is used in decoction in chronic rheumatism, psoriasis, . One or two grains of the dried leaf of turbance. The leaves when bruised are applied in poultices or baths to painful wounds. The berries are considered by the Hindoos to be tonic and diuretic, and the juice a hydragogue, cathartic, and diuretic; they are given in dropsy, . A syrup prepared from the plant is used as a cooling drink in fevers, and as an expectorant and diaphoretic. S. tuberosum is the Potato (q. v.), the leaves are powerfully narcotic and used in chronic rheumatism, painful affections of the stomach, . The fruit of S. melongena , the egg-plant, and S. verb as cifolium are used in India in curries. The berries of S. coagulans, S. xanthocarpum, wild in India, and the fruits of S. gracilipes , a garden escape there, are eaten. The last two, with S. ferox , S. indicum , S. trilobatum , are also used medicinally in India. Fumigation with the burnt fruit of many of them is a domestic remedy for toothache. S. pseudo quina produces the quina of Brazil. S. mammosum, S. paniculatum , S. guineense are diu retic; a deccction of the leaves of S. cernuum is a powerful sudorific. S. margin a tum is used in Abys sinia for tanning leather. The berries of S. muri catum, S. nemorense , and S. quitoense are eaten. S. lacinia tum produces the Kangaroo Apple of Tasmania, which is eaten.