Solanum deflexicarpum C.Y.Wu & S.C.Huang, Acta Phytotax. Sin. 16(2): 73. 1978.

Aubriot, Xavier & Knapp, Sandra, 2022, A revision of the " spiny solanums " of Tropical Asia (Solanum, the Leptostemonum Clade, Solanaceae), PhytoKeys 198, pp. 1-270 : 1

11. Solanum deflexicarpum C.Y.Wu & S.C.Huang, Acta Phytotax. Sin. 16(2): 73. 1978.

Fig. 18

Solanum indicum L. var. recurvatum C.Y.Wu & S.C.Huang, Acta Phytotax. Sin. 16(2): 73. 1978. Type. China. Yunnan: Dali, "Bohai city [transl. from the label]", 21 Feb 1957, Yunnan expedition 5005 (holotype: KUN [KUN184304]; isotypes: IBK [IBK00241973], IBSC [IBSC0004706], PE [PE00031389, PE02079736], SZ [SZ00254985, SZ00254997]).

Type.

China. Yunnan: " Xiangping Mountain, Xishou [transl. from protologue]", 29 Aug 1947, G. Feng 11429 (holotype: KUN [KUN484279]; isotypes: A [A00310057], PE [PE00730648], WUK [WUK0194818]) .

Description.

Shrubs to 2 m tall, unarmed or rarely sparsely armed. Stems erect, terete, moderately stellate-pubescent; prickles, if present, to 5 mm long, to 3 mm wide at the base, broad-based, curved, pale yellowish tan, sparsely stellate-pubescent near the base; pubescence of sessile to very short-stalked porrect-stellate trichomes, the rays 5-7, 0.1-0.4 mm long, the midpoints absent or to 0.5 mm long; new growth densely stellate-pubescent, the trichomes white and tangled, soon deciduous and the stems glabrate; bark of older stems greyish brown to grey. Sympodial units difoliate, the leaves geminate, or not geminate, the leaves of a pair equal in size and shape. Leaves simple, shallowly lobed, the blades 5-11 cm long, 2.5-7.5 cm wide, ca. 2 times longer than wide, elliptic, chartaceous, discolorous, unarmed or sparsely armed along the midrib and major veins with small curved prickles; adaxial surface evenly and sparsely to moderately stellate-pubescent with white-cream sessile porrect trichomes, the rays 4-6, 0.1-0.2 mm long, the midpoints 0.5-1.3 mm long; abaxial surface with similar sessile porrect-stellate trichomes, but with some short-stalked stellate trichomes with stalks to 0.5 mm and longer rays to 0.5 mm long; major veins 3-4 pairs, densely pubescent especially abaxially; base abruptly truncate, somewhat oblique; margins shallowly lobed, the lobes 3-4 on each side, 0.3-1 cm long, broadly deltate, apically rounded, the sinuses less than halfway to the midrib; apex acute; petioles 1-2 cm long, 1/4-1/2 as long as the leaf blades, sparsely prickly and moderately pubescent, the prickles 0-3, like those of the stems, the pubescence of sessile stellate-trichomes like those of the stems. Inflorescences 1-3 cm long, internodal and lateral, unbranched, with 5-10 flowers, only 1 or 2 flowers open at any one time, pubescent with sessile stellate-porrect trichomes like those of the stems, with 4-6 rays ca. 0.2 mm long and midpoints to 0.5 mm long, unarmed or with a few small prickles to 3 mm long; peduncle 0.1-0.8 cm long, unarmed; pedicels 0.35-0.5 cm long, 0.5-1 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the apex, spreading and slightly nodding at anthesis, unarmed or with a few small prickles to 1 mm long, densely stellate-pubescent like the inflorescence axes, articulated at the base; pedicel scars irregularly spaced 3-4 mm apart. Buds ellipsoid and somewhat tapering, strongly exserted from the calyx before anthesis. Flowers 5-merous, apparently all perfect, but some distal flowers may be short-styled. Calyx with the tube 2-2.5 mm long, conical, the lobes 1-2 mm long, ca. 1 mm wide, deltate, unarmed or with a few small prickles to 3 mm long and densely stellate-pubescent abaxially with sessile porrect-stellate trichomes like those of the pedicels. Corolla 0.8-1 cm in diameter, white, deeply stellate, lobed 3/4 of the way to the base, interpetalar tissue present, the lobes 4-4.5 mm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, deltate, spreading at anthesis, mostly glabrous adaxially but with a few stellate trichomes at the tips, densely stellate-pubescent abaxially with densely tangled sessile trichomes where exposed in bud, these densest at the tips. Stamens equal; anthers 3-4 mm long, ca. 2 mm wide, slightly tapering, yellow, glabrous, poricidal at the tips, the pores directed distally, not elongating to slits with drying; filament tube minute, glabrous; free portion of the filaments ca. 0.5 mm long, glabrous. Ovary conical, glabrous; style 5-6 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, the surfaces minutely papillose, bright green in live plants. Fruit a globose berry, several to many per infructescence, 1-1.2 cm in diameter, orange-red when ripe, the pericarp thin and shiny, glabrous; fruiting pedicels 0.8-1 cm long, 1-1.2 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 2 mm in diameter at the apex, somewhat woody, sharply deflexed and nodding, unarmed or with small prickles; fruiting calyx not accrescent, the lobes often breaking off. Seeds 50-60 per berry, 2-3 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, flattened reniform, pale tan or yellowish brown, the surfaces minutely pitted, the testal cells with sinuate margins. Chromosome number: not known.

Distribution

(Fig. 19 ). Solanum deflexicarpum is endemic to China (Yunnan province) and only known from few collections; potentially also present in northeastern Myanmar (Andrew s.n. collected in ‘Poneshee’ close to the boarder with Myanmar).

Ecology and habitat.

Solanum deflexicarpum grows in open vegetation and roadsides in semideciduous tropical forests, from 1,255 to 1,500 m elevation.

Common names and uses.

China. ku ci ( Zhang et al. 1994); Yunnan: ku ci, wan bing ci tian qie (pedicel curved and spiny, high altitude) [Mandarin] (Feng 11429).

Preliminary conservation status

( IUCN 2019). Near Threatened (NT). EOO (65,755 km2); AOO (16 km2). Solanum deflexicarpum occurs over a relatively wide range, but there are very few collections; the paucity of collections suggest that the species is of some conservation concern, meriting further study.

Discussion.

Solanum deflexicarpum is morphologically similar to the sympatric and very widespread S. violaceum and to the Indian endemics S. hovei and S. multiflorum ; in the analyses of Aubriot et al. (2016a) it is part of a monophyletic group with those species. It differs from S. violaceum in its condensed inflorescences with white rather than violet flowers and strongly down-curved fruiting pedicels; the fruiting pedicels of S. violaceum are more spaced, straight and are strongly spreading from the axis. Solanum deflexiflorum differs from S. hovei in its recurved fruiting pedicels (straight in S. hovei ) and truncate, oblique (versus attenuate) leaf bases. The inflorescences of S. multiflorum are similarly condensed, but S. deflexicarpum differs from that species in its more compact trichomes, fewer flowers per inflorescence, and its distribution in southern China.

Specimens examined.

See Suppl. materials 1-3.

Figures

Figure 18. Solanum deflexicarpum C. Y. Wu & S. C. Huang A herbarium specimen collected in China in 2007 (Knapp et al. 10130, BM 001019378) B detail of a fertile branch (Knapp et al. 10130, China) C detail view of a flower (Knapp et al. 10130, China) D detail view of an infructescence (Knapp et al. 10130, China). Photograph credits: A CC-BY, © copyright The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London B-D S. Knapp.

Figure 19. Distribution of S. deflexicarpum.