Solanum cassioides
Citation:
Phytologia 10 : 430. 1964.
Type:
Brazil. Santa Catarina: Lauro Müller, Urussanga, Pinhal de Companhia, 300 m, 20 Sep 1958, Reitz & Klein 7202 (holotype, US; isotype, HBR n.v.).
Last edited by:
Knapp, S.
Written by:
Knapp, S.
Habit:
Shrublets or shrubs, 0.5-2 m tall; young stems and leaves sparsely pubescent with small dendritic trichomes, soon glabrate; bark of older stems dark reddish-brown.
Sympodial structure:
Sympodial units difoliate, usually not geminate.
Leaves:
Leaves elliptic to narrowly elliptic, widest at the middle, the minor leaves if present not differing in size or shape from the majors, 3-12 x 1-5 cm, with 5-6 pairs of main lateral veins, the adaxial surface glabrous or with scattered uniseriate simple or dendritic trichomes with swollen reddish bases on the lamina, the abaxial surfaces pubescent with dendritic trichomes, these denser along the veins, the margins appearing toothed with small uniseriate swollen-based trichomes, the apex acute, the base attenuate; petioles 0.5-1.2 cm long.
Inflorescences:
Inflorescences internodal, often borne on short side shoots, 0.5-1.5 cm long, simple, 5-8-flowered, pubescent with dendritic trichomes like those of the stems; pedicel scars closely spaced, not overlapping. Buds ellipsoid to obovate, the corolla long-exserted from the calyx tube. Pedicels at anthesis filiform, 1.4-2.1 cm long, erect or somewhat deflexed, contracted below the calyx tube, ca. 0.5 mm in diam. at the base and apex, sparsely pubescent with dendritic trichomes.
Flowers:
Flowers with the calyx tube broadly conical, 1-1.5 mm long, the lobes deltoid, 1.5-2 mm long, with an elongate apical projection, sparsely pubescent with dendritic trichomes, with a tuft of simple uniseriate trichomes on the projection; corolla white, 2-2.3 cm in diam., lobed 2/3 of the way to the base, the lobes campanulate at anthesis with broad thin margins, the abaxial surfaces of the lobes pubescent with dendritic trichomes; anthers 4.5-5 x 1-1.5 mm, poricidal at the tips, the pores tear-drop shaped; free portion of the filaments minute, 0-0.5 mm long, the filament tube 0.5-1 mm long, glabrous; ovary glabrous or pubescent (only in type); style 0.8-1 cm long, glabrous or pubescent (in type only); stigma capitate, the surface minutely papillose.
Fruits:
Fruit a globose, often apically pointed, green (drying mustard yellow) berry, 1-1.5 cm in diam., the pericarp very hard and woody; fruiting pedicels woody, deflexed, 2.5-3.2 x ca. 1 mm in diam. at the base.
Seeds:
Seeds dark brown or pale tan, flattened reniform with incrassate margins, 2-3 x 2-2.5 mm, the surfaces minutely pitted.
Distribution:
SE Brazil in Araucauria forest, from 300 to 1200 m.
References:
Bitter, G. 1919. Solana nova vel minus cognita XVII.
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 16: 10-15.
Knapp, S. 2002. Solanum section Geminata (G. Don) Walpers (Solanaceae).
Flora Neotropica 84: 1-405.
Bohs, L. 2005. Major clades in Solanum based on ndhF sequences.
Pp. 27-49 in R. C. Keating, V. C. Hollowell, & T. B. Croat (eds.), A festschrift for William G. D’Arcy: the legacy of a taxonomist. Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden, Vol. 104. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis.
Solanum cassioides is probably closely related to S. trachytrichium, also from southeastern Brazil and adjacent Argentina. It shares with that species the hooked trichomes with mound-like multicellular bases on the leaf surfaces (see Fig. 9C in Knapp, 2002). In S. cassioides these trichomes are usually confined to the leaf margins, but in some collections are found on the adaxial leaf surfaces. Solanum trachytrichium has these trichomes over the entire leaf surface. The two species also share large, campanulate flowers and difoliate, non-geminate sympodial units.
Bitter (1919a) created subsection Silicosolanum for Solanum trachytrichium based on the rough feel of the leaves, but the two taxa here are not distinct enough from the rest of the S. nudum species group to warrant such separation.