NIGHTSHADE, a general term for plants of the botanical genus Solanum (family Solanaceae). The species to which the name of nightshade is commonly given in England and North America is Solanum Dulcamara which is called also bittersweet or woody nightshade. It is a common plant in damp hedgebanks and thickets, scrambling over underwood and hedges. It has slender slightly woody stems, with alternate lanceolate leaves down, rendering them, like their parents, exceedingly difficult to see when crouching on the ground.
A second species, C. ruficollis, occurs in Spain and Portugal and others are found throughout the Old World. In America, their place is taken by the allied genus, Antrostomus, one mem ber of which, A. vociferus, is the whip-poor-will (q.v.). The nighthawk (q.v.) is another common American species, with a voice quite different from that of the whip-poor-will.
The family Caprimulgidae is almost cosmopolitan, but is not represented in New Zealand and Polynesia.
more or less heart-shaped and auriculate at the base. The flowers are arranged in drooping clusters and resemble those of the potato in shape, although much smaller. The flower clusters spring from the stems at the side of, or opposite to, the insertion of a leaf. The corolla is rotate, of a lilac-blue colour with a green spot at the base of each segment, or sometimes white, and bears the yellow sessile anthers united at their margins so as to form a cone in the centre of the flower. The flowers are succeeded by ovate scarlet berries, 2 in. long, which in large doses appear to be poisonous or, to say the least, dangerous to children, cases of poisoning by them having occurred. The plant derives its names
of "bittersweet" and Dulcamara from the fact that its taste is at first bitter and then sweet. It is a native of Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia, and is widely naturalized.
The black nightshade, S. nigrum, differs from S. Dulcamara in having white flowers in small umbels and globose black berries. It is a common and well nigh cosmopolitan weed in gardens and waste places, growing about 12 or 18 in. high, and has ovate, entire or sinuate or toothed leaves. The berries have been known to produce poisonous effects when eaten by children, and owe their properties to the presence of solanine. In Reunion and Mauritius the leaves are eaten like spinach. (See SOLANUM.) Deadly nightshade, dwale or belladonna (Atropa belladonna) is a tall bushy herb of the same plant family. It grows to a height of 4 or 5 ft., having leaves of a dull green colour, with a black, shining, berry fruit, about the size of a cherry, and a large taper ing root. The plant is a native of central and south Europe, extending into Asia, and is found locally in England, chiefly on chalk and limestone, from Westmorland and southwards. The entire plant is highly poisonous, and accidents not infrequently occur through children and unwary persons eating the attractive looking fruit. Its leaves and roots are largely used in medicine, on which account the plant is cultivated, chiefly in south Germany, Switzerland and France. (See BELLADONNA.) The name nightshade is applied to plants of different genera in other countries.