solander2 (solander)

[ A Solander case is the invention of Dr. Solander, of memory dear to readers of "Cook's Voyages," who used one to contain and preserve specimens for natural history, drawings, and matters of the kind. It is really a box, generally shaped like a book, one side of which, turning on hinges, serves for a lid, while the front, or fore edge of the case, is furnished with hinges to be let down, so that the fronts as well as the tops of the contents can be got at. N. and Q., 7th ser., VII. 135. Solandra (sō-lan'dra), n . [NL. (Swartz, 1787), named after Daniel Solander (born 1736, died about 1781), a Swedish botanist and traveler.] A genus of solanaceous plants, of the tribe Atropeæ. It is characterized by solitary flowers with a long calyx-tube, an obliquely funnel-shaped corolla with broad imbricated lobes and induplicate sinuses, five stamens, and a two-celled ovary imperfectly four-celled by false partitions, forming in fruit a pulpy berry half-protruded from the torn membranous calyx. The 4 species are all American and tropical. They are lofty climbing coarse shrubby plants, with entire smooth fleshy and coriaceous shining leaves, clustered near the ends of the branches, and very large terminal white, yellowish, or greenish flowers on fleshy pedicels. S. grandiflora, S. long i flora, and other species are sometimes cultivated from the West Indies under the name trumpet - flower, forming handsome greenhouse evergreens, usually grown as climbers, or, in S. long i flora, as small shrubs. Solaneæ (so-la'nē-ē), n. pl. [NL. (A. L. de Ju ieu, 1789), solaneous (sō-lā nē-us), a. Belonging to the Solanaceæ, or especially to Solanum.