The genera Brunfelsia, Plowmania, Fabiana, Nierembergia and Petunia furnish garden plants bearing attractive flowers.

Brunfelsia and Plowmania are genera of tropical shrubs requiring glasshouse protection in temperate climate areas; Fabiana species are hardy shrubs; Nierembergia species are dwarf, hardy herbaceous perennials or sub-shrubs, and Petunia × atkinsiana has yielded a huge variety of flower colours, forms and patterns that have made it a favourite summer bedding plant.

[13] A number of Brunfelsia species have played important roles in the folk medicine of peoples indigenous to South America, having been used to treat conditions as diverse as syphilis, rheumatism, yellow fever and snakebite.

Medications prepared from Brunfelsia species have the curious effect of producing the sensation of chills, this being the rationale for their folk use in the treatment of fevers.

[15][16][17] The chemistry of Nierembergia hippomanica is most unusual for that of a plant belonging to the Solanaceae, in that the species contains (among other classes of toxic compounds) phenethylamine proto-alkaloids more usually associated with cacti and grasses: β-Phenylethylamine, N-Methyltyramine, tyramine, and hordenine have been isolated from it.