Solanum amygdalifolium
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Drawing of Solanum amygdalifolium |
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| Solanum amygdalifolium | ||||||||||||
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Solanum amygdalifolium is a species ofthe nightshade family (Solanaceae). Within the genus of the nightshade ( Solanum ) it is classified in the Dulcamaroid clade .
description
Vegetative characteristics
Solanum amygdalifolium is a woody liana that becomes over 5 meters long and crawls semi-aquatically along watercourses and in low vegetation. The stems are strongly ribbed over their entire length by four whitish green wings. The stems are completely hairless, only the young growth is finely papilous or rarely covered with confused, simple, single-row trichomes that soon fall off. The bark of older stems is green to pale yellowish green, it does not flake noticeably.
The sympodial units contain many leaves , these are never in pairs. The leaves are on 0.1 to 0.5 cm long, hairless or on the upper side with isolated trichomes covered petioles . They are rotated to help the plant climb. The leaf blades are simple, slightly fleshy to membranous, 2 to 6 inches long and 0.5 to 2 inches wide. They are lanceolate to linear in shape, very rarely individual leaves of a stem are weakly lobed. Both sides are hairless. Four to six pairs of side veins extend from the central axis and do not protrude on any side of the leaf. The base is pointed, towards the front the leaves are tapered to pointed, the foremost part of the tip is rounded. The leaf margin is entire and not noticeably curled.
Inflorescences and flowers
The inflorescences are at first terminal, later they are laterally standing or sometimes facing the leaves. They are 4 to 13 centimeters long, are branched four to five times and contain eight to 15 flowers . Except for a few thin, single-row trichomes at the tips of the branches, they are hairless. The inflorescence stalk is 0.5 to 2.5 centimeters long or is occasionally absent completely, so that the branches arise at the base of the inflorescence. The flower stalks are 3 to 10 millimeters apart, they are 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, measure about 1 millimeter in diameter at both the base and the tip. They are slender, protruding at the time of flowering, hairless and about 1.5 millimeters above the base, so that a remnant of the flower stalk remains on the inflorescence axis.
The buds are elliptical, the crown protrudes about 3/4 of the calyx tube before the flowering period . All flowers are hermaphroditic and five-fold. The size of the flowers differs between different locations. Usually the flowers in regions near the coast are smaller, which may be due to the humidity at the respective location. The calyx-tube is 1.5 to 3 millimeters long, conical in shape and has 1 to 1.5 millimeters long, triangular to broadly semicircular, hairless corolla lobes with papillary tips. The crown measures 2.5 to 4 centimeters in diameter, is purple in color, and is radially shaped. The individual petals are fused to each other about 1/2 of the length, the free-standing corolla lobes are 8 to 10 millimeters long and 8 to 9 millimeters wide. At flowering time, they stand splayed or on a straight plane. The back is densely covered with fine, single-row trichomes about 0.2 millimeters long, on the front there is only a fine hair from a few trichomes along the central axis of the petals.
The stamen tube is very weak, the individual stamens are free from each other over a length of about 1 millimeter. They are on the inboard side tightly tangled with thin, trichomes row with a length of about 0.5 millimeters hairy, so that the ovary is obscured. The anthers are colored yellow, 5 to 6 millimeters long, 1 to 1.5 millimeters wide, elliptical in shape and slightly inclined. They open through pores on the tips that lengthen into slits over time. The ovary is hairless and carrying a stylus 11 to 15 millimeters in length. This is sparsely hairy in the lower third to the lower half and ends in a club-shaped scar , the surface of which is finely papillary.
Fruits and seeds
When ripe, the fruit is a dull black, spherical to elliptical berry with a diameter of 1 to 1.2 centimeters and a length of up to 1.5 centimeters. The pericarp of the berry is thin, the surface is hairless. The stalks are more or less woody on the fruit, tilted down by the weight and have a length of 1.2 to 1.5 centimeters, their diameter is about 1.5 millimeters. Each fruit contains more than 40 rounded to flat-kidney-shaped, pale yellow seeds that are 1.5 to 2 millimeters long and 1 to 1.5 millimeters wide. The surface is fine-grained, the cells of the seed coat are rounded.
Distribution and locations
Solanum amygdalifolium occurs in the course of the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires in Argentina and the neighboring Uruguay to the upper reaches of the Río Pilcomayo in Paraguay . It is also close to the coast in Brazil from Bahia to the Rio Grande do Sul . Outside of this natural range, the species is occasionally cultivated for its showy flowers, for example in Bolivia and the Andean regions of Argentina.
The locations are at altitudes between 0 and 700 meters. The species occurs in the Chaco vegetation along streams and rivers and is found in thickets and open vegetation. It is associated with fresh water, but avoids brackish water.
Systematics
Within the genus of nightshade ( Solanum ), Solanum amygdalifolium is classified in the Dulcamaroid clade. Within the clade, the species can be classified in a morphologically and geographically separate group. In addition to Solanum amygdalifolium, these include the species Solanum aspersum , Solanum endoadenium , Solanum inodorum , Solanum luculentum and Solanum odoriferum . All species of this group are common in the Andes and southeastern Brazil.
Web links
- Solanum amygdalifolium . Entry on myspecies.info.