Nightshade - Edible Species Of Nightshades, Tomato, Potato, Eggplant And Peppers, Medicine, Tobacco
family plant plants flowers
The family of plants known as nightshades is also known as the Solanacene. It is a large group of plants composed of more than 2,000 species and 75 different genera. Most nightshades are herbs, but some species are shrubs, vines, or trees. Most of the members of the nightshade family are native to parts of Central and South America, but about 100 nightshades can be found in North America.
Some species of nightshades are important sources of food, such as tomatoes, chili and bell peppers, potatoes, and eggplant. A number of nightshade species have been used medicinally for thousands of years, and some species have narcotic and poisonous characteristics. Tobacco is a nightshade that has had a tremendous economic impact and has been a source of controversy since the
A partially cut field of tobacco in southern Wisconsin. JLM Visuals. Reproduced by permission.
early 1960s because of the link between smoking tobacco and several deadly diseases.
Other species in the nightshade family are grown as garden ornamentals. Well-known nightshade flowers include Browallia and Petunia, and the Chinese lantern is often found as an outdoor garden plant and sometimes as a potted house plant.
Some of the common characteristics of nightshades are alternating, simple leaves that are often hairy in texture and may have a strong odor. The size and shape of the leaves, however, vary greatly within the family. The flowers of these plants generally have a tubular shape, often with five petals attached, as in the petunia. The stamens of the flowers are connected at their base. When the ovary of the flower matures into a fruit, it is either fleshy like a tomato, or a dry fruit called a capsule, as in the tobacco plant.
Additional Topics
The tomato is eaten in many countries around the world. This was not always the case, since the reputation of nightshades as poisonous plants preceded the introduction of tomatoes as food into diets in Europe and the United States. Native to Central America and Mexico, the tomato was cultivated and eaten by aboriginal inhabitants in those regions before the Spanish came to the Americas. It is refe…
The part of the potato plant, Solanum tuberosum, that is eaten is called a tuber. A tuber is a bud at the end of an underground stem, not a root, that becomes enlarged. Native to Peru and Chile, the potato had been eaten by the people living in that region for 7,000 years. The people of the Andes ate cooked tubers, and they also dried potatoes and ground them into flour. After the Americas were di…
Nutritionally, the eggplant is primarily water with some carbohydrate, protein, mineral, and vitamin content. The fruit of the eggplant is considered a berry. In the seventeenth century its size and shape was somewhat different from its appearance today. Now it is cultivated for a gourd-like shape and the size is on the average about four inches in diameter and eight inches long. The skin is a thi…
Henbane, Jimson weed, mandrake, and belladonna are the common names of nightshades that have medicinal
A red missile pepper plant. Photograph by James Sikkema. Reproduced by permission.
uses. These plants contain alkaloids, substances that contain nitrogen, which can be isolated from the plant and used as drugs. The narcotic property of mandrake can induce sleep and may have been used as an…
A number of the nightshades that were used for medicine in the past became problematic because of adverse side effects, but they no longer stir the kind of controversy that tobacco has stirred in this country over the past several decades. Europeans discovered tobacco and the pleasures of smoking when they conquered the New World. The Spanish and the English colonists grew tobacco for export to th…
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