Scopolia is a genus of four species of flowering plants in the family Solanaceae, native to Europe and Asia. The genus is named after Giovanni Scopoli (1723–88), a Tyrolean naturalist.
The genus has a disjunct distribution, with two recognised species in Central to Eastern Europe,, and two species in East Asia.
The two European species are:Scopolia carniolica Jacq. of Slovenia, Austria and the Carpathian Mountains
Scopolia caucasica Kolesn. ex Kreyer of the Caucasus
Scopolia
Single flower of Scopolia carniolica, showing hairless, cup-shaped, only faintly-lobed calyx and cream-veined, purple-brown corolla
Single flower of Atropa belladonna, showing hairy, lobed calyx and hairy, purple and green, urn-shaped corolla, netted with veins. Note curved pistil (bearing minutely hairy stigma) protruding beyond corolla.
Close up of cream-coloured interiors of two flowers of Scopolia carniolica (some dark venation visible at very bases of flowers)
Giovanni Antonio Scopoli was an Italian physician and naturalist. His biographer Otto Guglia named him the "first anational European" and the "Linnaeus of the Austrian Empire".
Giovanni Antonio Scopoli
Principia mineralogiae systematicae et practicae, 1772
Flora Carniolica (1760)
