Solanum reclinatum Dunal:
Peru (South America)

Solanum laciniatum Aiton:
New Zealand (Oceania)
Peru (South America)
United States (North America)
China (Asia)

New Zealand and Australia, from southeastern South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, on a variety of soil types; adventive in West Australia (fide Symon, 1981, who also considered S. laciniatum as adventive in New Zealand). In hollows in stabilized sand dunes, creek edges and roadsides in mostly mesic areas.

Solanum laciniatum is similar to S. aviculare Forster under which name it was introduced from Australia and known in FRPS and other works. It differs in having yellow-orange rather than scarlet fruit, notched corolla lobes, and in details of the seeds.

Shrubs to 3 m tall; pubescence of simple hairs, soon glabrescent. Stems glabrous except for minute pubescence on young tips and buds. Leaves unequal paired, lobed and entire often on same plant; petiole of lobed leaf ca. 1-1.5 cm, that of entire leaf 0.5-1 cm; blade of lobed leaf broadly ovate, deeply pinnately 3-5-parted, 12-17 × 6-13 cm; blade of entire leaf lanceolate, 10-20 × 1.5-3 cm. Inflorescences terminal, axillary, or extra-axillary, scorpioid-racemose, ca. 8 cm; peduncle short or obsolete. Pedicel 1.5-3 cm. Calyx 5-7 mm; lobes deltate, 2-3 mm, leathery, apex mucronulate. Corolla blue-purple, rotate, 2-2.5 cm; lobes semirounded, notched. Filaments subulate; anthers oblong, 3-4 mm. Style ca. 8 mm. Berry orange-yellow, ovoid or ellipsoid, ca. 3 × 2.5 cm, pendulous. Seeds subovate, ca. 3 × 2 mm, compressed. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jul-Sep.

Habit

A soft-wooded shrub 1-3 m tall, lasting several years, main stem to 10 cm diam., becoming spreading and straggly with age, glabrous except for minute glandular hairs on young growing tips, buds, and a few sparse simple hairs on seedlings and young leaves, soon glabrescent, general aspect green, or stems suffused purplish.

Sympodial Structure

Sympodial units plurifoliate.

Leaves

Leaves variable in size and lobing even on same plant; herbarium specimens often inadequate to show range of leaf form; lobed leaves 15-30 x 10- 15 cm, broadly ovate, deeply pinnatisect, (1-) 7 (-9) lobes each to 10 x 1 cm, lanceolate, sinuses rounded, not reaching midrib, lower pair of lobes usually smaller, leaf base cuneate, more or less equal continued down the petiole some distance, lobe apex blunt to acuminate, all forms of intermediates occur to adult leaves, (5-) 10 (-20) x (1-) 1.5 (-4) cm, lanceolate, entire, base cuneate, apex acuminate; petiole 1 cm long.

Inflorescences

Inflorescence a scorpioid cyme, 5-15 cm long, simple or forked from base, often in axil of stem fork or leaf, pedicellate flower may also occur in fork, few to 10 flowers; peduncle to 4 cm long; floral rhachis to 10 cm long; pedicel 1.5-3 cm long, slender. Fruiting rhachis 10-20 cm long; pedicels 2-3 cm long, lengthening and firming; calyx to 5 x 5 mm, enlarged and appressed, covering base of fruit. Buds narrowly ellipsoid, soon exerted from the calyx tube.

Flowers

Flowers with the calyx tube 3-4 mm long, the lobes 2 mm long, short, broad, margins almost scarious, the acumen 1 mm long, bluntly mucronate; corolla 3-5 cm diam., rotate, interacuminal tissue well developed, exceeding acumens, the lobes appearing emarginate, often showy, deep purple-blue, close to RHS Aster Violet 38/1-38/2; filaments 3-4(-5) mm long; anthers 3-4 mm long, oblong, free, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits; ovary 1.5-3 mm long, bluntly conical; style 6-9 mm long; stigma capitate, shortly bilobed, distinctly papillose.

Fruits

Fruit a berry, 1.5-2 cm diam., ovoid to obovoid, first green, later paling to yellow or orange-yellow, succulent, readily shed when ripe; fruiting rhachis 10-20 cm long; pedicels 2-3 cm long, lengthening and firming; calyx to 5 x 5 mm, enlarged and appressed, completely covering base of fruit.

Seeds

Seeds 200-300, 2.5-3 mm, obovoid to broadly obovoid, reddish brown, the surfaces concentrically rugose with a few reticulate lines; stone cells 40-60, (1-) 2-2.5 (-3.5) mm rounded, rarely facetted.

Cultivated. Hebei, Hubei, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Yunnan [native of Oceania]

Solanum laciniatum is a member of the Archaeosolanum clade, a strongly supported monophyletic group in molecular analyses of using plastid DNA sequences, and is of no strong affinity with other groups of Solanum (Bohs, 1995). Symon (1981) placed S. laciniatum in series Laciniata Geras., with S. vescum and S. linearifolium. In Symon’s (1994) preliminary phylogeny based on morphology, Solanum laciniatum is sister to S. aviculare + S. multivenosum; that small group is sister to S. vescum.

Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLDS) Stats
Public Records: 5
Species: 5
Species With Barcodes: 1

Solanum lacinatum and S. aviculare are the two commonly cultivated species of the Archaesolanum clade; both have been used in the alkaloid industry (see Symon, 1994 for a summary) in the ex-Soviet Union, Australia and New Zealand. The two taxa are difficult to distinguish from herbarium specimens without notes on mature fruit colour; Baylis (1954) clarified their differences. Solanum aviculare is diploid, with orange or red mature fruit, and about 600 seeds per fruit; S. laciniatum is tetraploid, with green mature, and ca. 200 seeds per fruit. Solanum laciniatum may be a hybrid involving S. aviculare and/or S. vescum (Symon, 1981), but these ideas have not been tested using molecular methods.

Crosses between Solanum laciniatum have been made with the diploid species S. aviculare, S. simile, S. linearifolium and S. vescum and the tetraploid species S. symonii (summarized in Symon, 1994).

The species described as Solanum pinnatifidum by Lamarck was said to be from Peru, where no members of section Archaesolanum are known; this is surely a mis-labelling. Two specimens in the Lamarck herbarium in Paris, one of which (IDC 466/17) is labelled “Solanum pinnatifidum Lam., ill.” are clearly members of section Archaesolanum (Symon, 1994), and are potential type material. Symon (1994) did not chose a lectotype for this name, due to the ambiguity of its application to either S. lacinatum or S. vescum. He stated “In the interests of nomenclatural stability it may be best to consider S. pinnatifidum [Lam.] an obscure name but retain it associated with S. laciniatum” (Symon, 1994). Ruiz & Pavon (1799) described a Solanum pinnatifidum from coastal Peru, a member of section Regmandra. Solanum pinnatifidum Lam. Has sometimes been confused with these plants endemic to the lomas vegetation of coastal Peru and Chile, but examination of the Lamarck herbarium sheets confirms that Lamarck’s plant is a member of section Archaesolanum.

The series of forms described from cultivation in the 1970s (Gerasimenko 1971) represent minor horticultural variants in leaf shape and alkaloid content, and really ought to be treated under the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (Brickell et al., 2004).