Name: Solanaceae
Meaning of Name:
Solanaceae, from Latin sōlānum (‘nightshade’) + Latin -āceae (the feminine plural of -āceus, ‘resembling’, a suffix used to form the taxonomic family names of plants, algae, bacteria, and fungi)
Common Names:
The nightshade family
Botanical Information:
Solanaceae, or the nightshade family, has close to 100 genera and 2,700 species.
This family is of huge economic importance, and contains many food cultivars such as those of tomato, capsicum, potato and eggplant. Cape gooseberry, goji berry and tobacco are also in this family.
The nightshade family is also well-known for poisonous, hallucinatory and medicinal species.
The defining botanical characteristic of Solanaceae species concerns the flower structure.
The photo chosen to illustrate this family shows the flower cluster of a tomato (Solanum lycopersicum).
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