Nightshade family
Description
A family of mostly herbs but some shrubs and small trees, cosmopolitan in distribution but centred in the tropics (Solanaceae 1).
Leaves usually alternate and simple, entire to deeply lobed. Flowers in axillary inflorescences or borne singly, regular, usually with 5 sepals and 5 petals forming a corolla tube, at least at the base. There are 5 stamens, inserted on the corolla tube, and a superior ovary. The fruit is a capsule or berry.
There are some 90 genera.
Use
The family includes many plants of great economic importance: food crops like the potato, aubergine, tomato, and sweet and red pepper; edible fruits like the tree tomato, Cape gooseberry, tomatillo, cocona, pepino and naranjilla; tobacco; and poisenous species like thornapple, deadly nightshade or belladonna and henbane, rich in alkoloids, some of which are used in medicine.
Described species
Capsicum annuum, sweet or red peppers, chillies
Capsicum frutescens, bird chillies, see Capsicum annuum
Lycopersicon esculentum, tomato
Cyphomandra betacea, tree tomato or tamarillo
Physalis peruviana, Cape gooseberry
Physalis ixocarpa, tomatillo or jamberry, see Physalis peruviana
Nicotiana tabacum, tobacco
Nicotiana rustica, nicotine tobacco, see Nicotiana tabacum
Solanum tuberosum, potato
Solanum melongena, aubergine, egg plant, brinjal
Solanum hyperhodium, cocona, see Solanum melongena
Solanum muricatum, pepino or melon pear, see Solanum melongena
Solanum quitoense, naranjilla, see Solanum melongena