Habit: Annual to shrub, vine or not, prickly or not, often glandular.
Leaf: alternate to +- opposite, often unequal, entire to deeply pinnately lobed.
Inflorescence: panicle or umbel-like, often 1-sided.
Flower: calyx +- bell-shaped; corolla +- rotate, white to purple (yellow), lobes generally of different color toward base of midrib, generally without spots at base; anthers free, > filaments, oblong or tapered, opening by 2 pores or short slits near tip, in age often splitting to base; ovary 2-chambered, style 1, generally +- straight, stigma head-like.
Fruit: berry, generally spheric, fleshy (or dry, capsule-like).
Seed: many, compressed, generally reniform.
Species In Genus: +- 1500 species: worldwide, especially tropical America.
Etymology: (Latin: quieting, from narcotic properties)
Toxicity: many TOXIC.
Note: Many cultivated for food (including potato,
Solanum tuberosum), ornamental;
Solanum dimidiatum in California an urban weed. See
Lycopersicon for other taxa recently included here.
Jepson eFlora Author: Michael H. Nee
Unabridged Reference: Nee, M. 1999. Synopsis of Solanum in the New World, pp. 285--333 in M. Nee, D.E. Symon, R.N. Lester & J.P. Jessop (eds.), Solanaceae IV, Advances in Biology and Utilization, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Symon 1981 J Adelaide Bot Gard 4:1--367Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Solanum
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