Over the centuries, the nightshade family (a large group that includes more than two thousand species of annuals, perennials, vines, shrubs, and even small trees) has gotten a very bad rap---which is a pity, because it ranks high on the list of plant families that people have found extremely useful. It's hard to imagine our menus without potatoes, tomatoes, chile peppers and eggplant, or picture our gardens without the showy petunias that splash color all over the landscape. Surgeons of antiquity, who relied on plant narcotics for anesthesia, found bothe the mandrake and deadly nightshade indispensable when they needed to put people to sleep---althought they no doubt lost a few patients in the process.
On the other hand, the nightshade family also includes the notoriously addictive tobacco, that great cash crop that has made some people hugely rich and millions of people desperately sick, and three narcotic plants that have long been associated with soothsaying, black magic, and witchcraft. It's this side of the Solanaceae---the dark side---that has given these herbs such an evil reputation.
Nightshades on your tableChances are, you'll enjoy at least one nightshade today---tomato juice and hash browns for breakfast, perhaps; a chile-pepper and tomatillo salsa on you lunchtime taco or burger; a vodka-and-tonic or bloody Mary at happy hour; eggplant Parmesan for dinner.
In its native Peru, the potato was a staple food and medicine for nearly eight thousand yers, used to treat everthing from arthritis andfrostbite to infertility. But when the Spaniards brought it to Europe in the 1570's, it was a different story. A botanist assigned the potato to the Solanaceae family and nobody woudl touch it for fear of being poisoned---or of being thought too poor to afford anything else:
Only the wretched eat this root, it was said. It was another two centuries before the potato climbed the social ladder and Europeans accepted it as a delicious, nutritious vegetable. It was Thomas Jefferson who introduced the potato to polite American society, when he served a platter of elegant, tasteful French fries at a presidential dinner at the White House.
The tomato, valued as a food and medicine by American Indians, suffered a similar rejection when it first traveled eastward to Europe int hte sixteenth century. It was said to be unwholesome at best and poisonous at worst, although a few herbalists thought it might be good for the treatment of eye ailments and scabies. The Ialians took to the tomato more readily than othre peoples, and their sixteenth-centurey practice of drying the fruit in the sun has come back into favor today. Scientist now tell us that the tomato is not only nutritious, but helps to prevent certain cancers and strengthens the cardiovascular system.
The eggplant (Solanum melongena) traveled the opposite way, from east to west. The Moors took it from southeast Asia to Spain, and the Spaniards took it to America. In Asia, it was both food and medicine, used as an expectorant and a diuretic and as a treatment for throat and stomach ailments. In Europe, it was called Solanum insanum (popularly dubbed the "mad apple") but began appearing in cookbooks in the ninetheenth century, reflecting its growing use as a vegetable. Americans call it eggplant because some eighteenth-century European cultivars bore yellow or white fruits the size of goose or hen's eggs.
The tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica), also known as the husk tomato, is widely used as a condiment in south-of-the-border cookery.
Nightshades in your flower gardenOrnametnal nightshades, especially the petunia, are a staple in modern gardens. Brought to Europe from South American in the early part of the ninetheenth century, they immediately captured the attention of hybridists. Now, through the magic of plant breeding, we can obtain fringed, doubled, and ruffled petunias in an amazing range of colors and markings, for garden beds or hanging baskets.
Other ornamental nightshades,
Datura and
Brugmansia (Angel's Trumpet), have a more ambiguous reputation. While they delight and amaze us with their stunning flower trumpets, these plants contain significant levels of the tropane alkaloids atropine and scopolamine and have a long history of use as medicines, ritural hallucinogens in sacred ceremonies, and poisons. They are highly toxic if ingested. If you grow these beautiful plants, do so responsibly, guarding against their misuse.
Deadly nightshadesOf all the plants in human use, few are regarded with as much fear as the Solanacae trio: deadly nightshade (
Atropa belladonna), mandrake(
Mandragora officinarum), and henbane(
Hyoscyamus niger). In antiquity, their high levels of tropane alkaloids made them the weapons of choice when it came to murder. In the Middle Ages, tehy were used to induce the hallucinations associated with the practice of witchcraft and sorcery. Numerous superstitions surround all three plants, and their poisonous properties are legendary. However, deadly nightshade remains the chief source of scopolamine (in some countries, mixed with morphine for use as an anesthetic in childbirth) and atropine, used by ophthalmologists to dilate the pupil of the eye and in the treatment of heart attacks. Atropine is stockpiled in the U.S. military and some hospitals as an antidote for biological and chemical poisons.
The deadliest nightshadeFrom a broad cultural point of view, the deadliest nightshade of all is tobacco (
Nicotaiana tabacum), which contains the tropane alkaloid nicotine. According to the National Center for Chronic Disease, cigarette smoke is responsible for some 438, 000 premature deaths each year in the United States alone, while smoking-related health care and lost productivity are estimated to cost the nation over 167 billion dollars per year. Globally, it is predicted that by 2020, the use of tobacco will account for some 16 million new cases of cancer each year and 10 million cancer deaths. Tobacco, regarded by its original American Indian users as a sacred plant with magical powers and by sixteenth-century Europeans as a medicinal panacea, is now understood to be a dangerously addictive carcinogenic herb.
Books to readThe Fascinating World of the Nightshades, by Charles B. Heiser, Jr. Dover Publications, 1987.
Murder, Magic, and Medicine, by John Mann. Oxford University Press, 1992.
The Natural History of Medicinal Plants, by Judith Sumner and Mark Plotkin. Timber Press, 2000.
The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World, by Larry Zuckerman. North Point Press, 1998.
Tobacco: A Cultural History of How An Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization, by Iain Gately. Grove Press, 2003.
The above article is taken from the back of the book: Nightshade, by Susan Wittig Albert, Berkley Prime Crime, Penguin Group (USA), 2008.
