Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Solanaceae
A rather large natural order of herbs, erect or climbing shrubs, or rarely trees, mostly inhabiting the warmer regions of the globe. Flowers hermaphrodite, regular or slightly irregular; calyx five (rarely four, six, or seven) parted, toothed, or lobed, gamosepalous; corolla gamopetalous, tubular, funnel, salver, or bell-shaped, or rotate; limb five (rarely four, six, or seven) parted or lobed, the lobes equal or obscurely bilabiate; stamens alternating with the corolla segments, affixed to the tube; inflorescence usually cymose. Fruit capsular or baccate. Leaves alternate, the upper ones usually twin, in one instance whorled, entire, toothed, lobed or dissected. Of all the plants comprised in this order, the most useful to man is the Potato (Solanum tuberosum). Tobacco, the manufactured leaves of several species of Nicotiana, principally N. Tabacum, is also a highly-important article of commerce. Among other products may be mentioned; Chilies, the berries of Capsicum annuum; Cayenne Pepper, the ground fruits of a sub-woody species of Capsicum; the Tomato or Love Apple (Lycopersicum esculentum), widely cultivated; and the Brinjal, Aubergine, or Egg Plant (Solanum Melongena). The principal medicinal properties of Solanaceae are: Belladonna, Henbane, and Stramonium. The fruits of Solanum quitense, and other species, are edible. About sixty-six genera and 1200 species are included under Solanaceae. Examples: Cestrum, Lycopersicum, Nicotiana, Petunia, Physalis, and Solanum.