AUBERGINE or EGG PLANT (Solanum Melongena), a tender annual widely cultivated in the warmer parts of the earth, and in France and Italy, for the sake of its fruits, which are eaten as a vegetable (diminutive of Fr. auberge, a variant of alberge, a kind of peach). The seed should be sown early in February in a warm pit, where the plants are grown till shifted into Bin. or join. pots, in well-manured soil. Liquid manure should be given occasionally while the fruit is swelling; about four fruits are nor mal to one plant. The fruit of the ordinary form almost exactly resembles the egg of the domestic fowl. It is also grown as an ornamental plant, for covering walls or trellises.