Solanum capense
Not known.
Namibia and South Africa; growing in sand and gravel near water or in open woodland; 800-1300 m elevation.
Solanum capense is a member of the Old World Clade of subgenus Leptostemonum (Levin et al., 2006). Vorontosva et al. (2013) found it to be a member of a poorly supported group including S. humile and S. tometosum.(also from South Africa), alogn with S. vespertilio and S. lidii of the Canary Islands.
Bitter, G. 1923. Solana Africana. IV. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beihefte 16: 1-320.
Jaeger, P.-M.L. 1985. Systematic studies in the genus Solanum in Africa. PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Knapp, S. 2013. Typification of Solanum (Solanaceae) described by Casimiro Gómez Ortega. Anales Jard. Bot. Madrid 70: 56-61.
Levin, R.A., N.R. Myers, & L. Bohs 2006. Phylogenetic relationships among the "spiny" solanums (Solanum subgenus Leptostemonum). Amer. J. Bot. 93: 157-169.
Vorontsova, M. S., S. Stern, L. Bohs, and S. Knapp. 2013. African spiny Solanum (subgenus Leptostemonum, Solanaceae): a thorny phylogenetic tangle. Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 173: 176-193. doi:10.1111/boj.12053
Solanum capense is a slender shrublet recognized by its dense covering of curved prickles and porrect trichomes with 6-7 rays on all vegetative parts. The species concept adopted here encompasses a range of local morphologies. Populations from south of the Drakensberg mountains in the Eastern Cape (South Africa) have deeply lobed leaves with rounded asymmetric lobes, light yellow prickles with wide bases, 2-6 prickles on the leaves, filiform pedicels, white flowers and a dark drying color. The equally abundant populations from the Western Cape province, Namaqualand and Namibia have leaves with more even and apically pointed lobes, orange prickles with narrow bases, no prickles on the leaves, more stout pedicels, mauve flowers, and a yellow-green drying color. A few recent collections from Namibia are similar to the western group but have larger narrow leaves and fewer prickles. The populations from Western Cape (South Africa), Namaqualand and Namibia are probably what Bitter (1923) and Jaeger (1985) understood as S. namaquense; unfortunately, the type material of S. namaquense has not been found and is probably destroyed.
There is potential for confusion with the following partially sympatric species: S. humile along western coast of South Africa and Namibia, S. catombelense in Namaqualand, Namibia and Angola, S. burchellii in the Northern Cape and southern half of Namibia, S. supinum in inland areas, and S. tomentosum in the Western and Eastern Cape. Solanum capense from Namaqualand and Namibia can be highly reminiscent of S. humile in its habit and leaf morphology and is distinguished by its curved prickles 3-5 mm long (versus straight prickles 4-13 mm long in S. humile). Solanum capense is easy to distinguish from S. catombelense by its leaves that are almost always 1.5-2.5 cm long (versus 3-8 cm long in S. catombelense) and lobed for 1/3-2/3 of the distance to the midvein (versus less than ¼ of the distance to the midvein in S. catombelense). Solanum capense can be distinguished from S. burchellii by its curved prickles (versus prickles straight or absent in S. burchellii) and leaves lobed for ½-2/3 of the distance to the midvein (versus leaves almost entire in S. burchellii). Most specimens of S. supinum are easily identifiable by their deeply-dissected leaves, but confusion has occurred with the almost entire-leaved populations of S. supinum (previously S. leucophaeum) from the area around Queenstown in Eastern Cape. Solanum capense can be reliably distinguished from S. supinum by its fruting calyx lobes under 3-5 mm long (versus fruiting calyx lobes to 0.8-1.4 cm long in S. supinum), orange fruit 0.65-1 cm diameter (versus yellow fruit 1.2-1.5 cm in diameter in S. supinum), and many-flowered inflorescences (versus solitary flowers in S. supinum). Solanum capense can also be distinguished from S. tomentosum by its abundant curved prickles (versus prickles straight or absent in S. tomentosum). The abundant light-colored hooked prickles and deeply-lobed leaves of the Eastern Cape S. capense populations are highly reminiscent of S. sodomaeodes. Solanum sodomaeodes is found to the east of the distribution range of S. capense and can be distinguished by its stalked 4-rayed or uniradiate trichomes with elongated midpoints or completely glabrous epidermis (versus almost sessile trichomes with 6-7 rays and reduced midpoints, always present in S. capense).
The Linnaean herbarium contains two specimens annotated as S. capense: The specimen LINN 248.46 is the Miller specimen mentioned in the protologue and is chosen as the lectotype; LINN 248.47 was added by Linnaeus’s son and is referrable to S. humile. We have lectotyified Miller’s name S. schiruschuna (and its illegitimate replacement name, S. milleri where S. schiruschuna was cited in synonymy) with a specimen in BM from the Chelsea Physic Garden labelled with the protologue text in Miller’s hand. This specimen was incorrectly labeled as “holotype” by R.N. Lester. Two other specimens in BM (BM000942582 and BM000942583) collected from cultivated plants in Chelsea Physic Garden (one labelled with the protologue text and dated 1762, and the other undated) are probably isolectotype material, and are cited as such. Ortega’s S. subbiflorum was described from material grown in the Madrid botanical garden in the late 18th century, and may have come from the same source as that used by Miller ;Knapp( 2013) selected a sheet at MA that conforms to the description as the neotype.
The chosen lectotype of Solanum capense var. tomentosum constitutes the most complete material including a fruit and is the specimen most clearly linked to the protologue by the presence of a collector number; both the lectotype and the isolectotype are mounted on the same sheet as the other syntypes (J. Drège s. n. [K000414135] and J. Drège s. n. [K000414138]). Solanum galpinii has previously been placed in synonymy under S. humile which is likely erroneous, as S. humile is not known from the Eastern Cape; confirming the identity of this name may not be possible if no original material is found. Bitter cited no herbaria in the protologue of S. dinteri, and the sheet in Z is the only duplicate we have found.