Solanum storkii Morton & Standl.

Shrubs to medium size (20 cm dbh) trees, 2–10 m tall. Stems and leaves densely pubescent with dull golden echinoid trichomes, the trichome axes rather short, these trichomes deciduous with age; leaf scars somewhat prominent, the stem lightly winged from the decurrent leaf bases; new growth densely pubescent with echinoid and short tree-like trichomes. Bark of older stems grey, sparsely pubescent with a few trichomes of the younger stems. Sympodial units plurifoliate. Leaves simple, 4–10 cm long, 1.3–2 cm wide, narrowly elliptic, the upper surfaces shiny, drying dark, sparsely pubescent with scattered echinoid trichomes on the veins and lamina, the undersurfaces sparsely pubescent with echinoid trichomes, the trichomes slightly sunken beneath the lamina surface; primary veins 8–11 pairs, sparsely pubescent; base attenuate, decurrent on to the petiole; margins entire; apex acute to acuminate; petiole 0.7–1.3 cm long, lightly winged from the leaf bases and on to the stem, not twining. Inflorescences terminal, sometimes appearing lateral from overtopping shoot growth, 3–5 cm long, branching 2–5 times, with 10–15 flowers, pyramidal, densely pubescent with echinoid trichomes; peduncle 1.5–5 cm long; pedicels 0.9–1.1 cm long, tapering from a basal diameter of 0.5 mm to an apical diameter of ca. 1 mm, nodding at anthesis, sparsely to densely pubescent with echinoid and tree-like trichomes, articulated at the base and inserted in a sleeve ca. 0.5 mm long; pedicel scars closely spaced and clustered near the inflorescence branch tips. Buds ellipsoid, the corolla strongly exserted from the calyx tube. Flowers all perfect, 5-merous. Calyx tube 2–3 mm long, conical, the lobes 1–1.5 mm long, deltate, densely pubescent abaxially with echinoid or occasionally tree-like trichomes, sparsely pubescent adaxially with golden dendritic trichomes. Corolla 1.5–2 cm in diameter, violet, lobed ca. 3/4 of the way to the base, the lobes 6–10 mm long, 4–6 mm wide, planar or slightly upturned at anthesis, densely pubescent abaxially with dendritic trichomes, these denser at the tips of the lobes, glabrous adaxially. Filament tube absent; free portion of the filaments ca. 0.5 mm long, glabrous; anthers 4–4.5 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, loosely connivent, poricidal at the tips, the pores becoming slit-like with age. Ovary glabrous; style 6–8 mm long, glabrous; stigma minutely bilobed, scarcely distinguishable from the style, the surface minutely papillose. Fruit a globose berry, 1–1.3 cm in diameter, purplish-black with thin pericarp, the juice sticky and very bitter; fruiting pedicels 1.8–2 cm long, ca. 1.5 mm in diameter at the base, woody, erect to slightly nodding. Seeds 8–9 per fruit, 3–4 mm × 1.5–2.5 mm, reddish-brown, flattened or slightly thickened reniform, the surfaces minutely pitted. Chromosome number: not known.

(Figure 96). Cordillera de Talamanca from Volcán Poas in Costa Rica to western Panama, from 2300–3300 m.