A family of plants, the Solanaceae, characterized by alternate leaves, usually five-petaled flowers, and many-seeded fruits and including the eggplant, tomato, potato, and belladonna as well as the nightshades, capsicum peppers, tobaccos, and petunias. Family Solanaceae, composed of at least 2,400 species of flowering plants in about 95 genera. Though found worldwide, the nightshades are most abundant in tropical Latin America. Many are economically important as food or medicinal plants. Among the most important are the potato, eggplant, tomato, garden pepper, tobacco, and many garden ornamentals, including the petunia. The medicinally significant nightshades are potent sources of such alkaloids as nicotine, atropine, and scopolamine; they include deadly nightshade (belladonna), jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), henbane, and mandrake. The genus Solanum contains almost half the species in the family. The species usually called nightshade in North America and England is S. dulcamara, also called bittersweet and woody nightshade
The plant Atropa belladonna, a perennial shrub of the nightshade family that contains high concentrations of the alkaloid atropine which can be deadly if taken in excess
A poisonous climbing or trailing plant (Solanum dulcamara) native to Eurasia and a widespread weed in North America, having violet flowers with recurved corolla lobes and red berries. Also called bittersweet, deadly nightshade
A poisonous, annual Eurasian plant (Solanum nigrum) widespread as a weed and having clusters of white, star-shaped flowers and usually blackish berries
Eurasian herb naturalized in America having white flowers and poisonous hairy foliage and bearing black berries that are sometimes poisonous but sometimes edible
belladonna: perennial Eurasian herb with reddish bell-shaped flowers and shining black berries; extensively grown in United States; roots and leaves yield atropine
{i} poisonous perennial shrubby plant that has drooping clusters of violet flowers and elliptical berries; bittersweet; common weed found in North America
nightshade
الواصلة
night·shade
التركية النطق
nayçeyd
النطق
/ˈnīˌʧād/ /ˈnaɪˌʧeɪd/
علم أصول الكلمات
() Old English nihtscada, apparently corresponding to night + shade.