SOL

In Music, the fifth note of the gamut. SOLANACE^. (Solanum, one of the genera.) A natural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, inhabiting all parts of the world excepting the arctic regions. They are chiefly known from Scrophulariacece by their curved or spiral embryo, the plaited estivation of the flower, and the flowers being usually regular, with the same number of stamens as lobes. The first of these characters, however, is not of universal importance; the plaited corolla and symmetrical flowers are better marks of distinction. This order contains nightshade, henbane, mandrake, tobacco, stramonium, the potato, and the tomato, the leaves of all which are narcotic and exciting, but in different degrees,— from Atropa belladonna, which causes vertigo, convulsions, and vomiting; tobacco, which will frequently produce the first and last of these symptoms; henbane and stramonium, — down to some of the Solanum tribes, the leaves of which are so inert as to be used as kitchen herbs. Even in the potato plant, the narcotic acrid principle is found in the stem and leaves, and even in the rind of the tuber. But the principal part of the latter consists of starch; and the small quantity of deleterious matter being volatile and near the surface, is readily driven off by the heat used in cooking. [s. 1142]