Solanum melastomoides
Not known
Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya; occasional or locally common in open bushland or rocky places, growing on limestone or red sand; 200-1700 m elevation.
Solanum melastomoides is a member of the Old World Clade of subgenus Leptostemonum (the spiny solanums; Levin et al., 2006); within that group it is sister to S. coagulans (the Coagulans clade, Vorontsova et al. 2013).
Bitter, G. 1923. Solana Africana. IV. Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg., Beih.. 16: 1-320.
Jaeger, P.-M. L. 1985. Systematic studies in the genus Solanum in Africa. PhD thesis. United Kingdom: University of Birmingham.
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
Wright, C.H. & O. Stapf 1894. Diagnoses Africanae, III. Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 1894: 120-129.
Wright, C.H. 1906. Solanaceae. In: W. T. Thiselton-Dyer (ed.), Flora of Tropical Africa 4(2): 207-261.
Uses. Fruits used medicinally or as a poison.
Solanum melastomoides is an arching shrub with large, violet, zygomorphic flowers. Identification is easy in flower and fruit because one stamen is 4-6 mm longer than the others, and the fruit is filled with black seeds. A group of S. melastomoides specimens from northern Somalia have more deeply lobed leaves, sparser indumentum, and smaller trichomes.
Solanum melastomoides and its more widespread weedy relative S. coagulans form the zygomorphic-flowered Coagulans clade with one filament longer than the others and black seeds. Solanum melastomoides can be distinguished from S. coagulans by its unarmed calyx that is the same size in flower and fruit (versus accrescent armed calyx in S. coagulans), the long stamen protruding 4-6 mm further than the others (versus 1.5-2 mm further than the others in S. coagulans), leaves under 5 cm long, entire or with up to 3 lobes on each side (versus mostly over 5 cm long with more than 3 lobes on each side in S. coagulans).
The sheet cited in the protologue of S. melastomoides (Wright 1894) has on it two different James & Thrupp collections. The syntype from Harradigit has uncharacteristically large leaves, inflorescences, and flowers, and a denser covering of prickles; the syntype from Bwobi has been chosen as lectotype as its smaller size and the presence of darker curved spines make it more representative of S. melastomoides. Wright (1906) cited a second specimen of S. melastomoides, collected by Miss Edith Cole from Dooloo, and Bitter (1923) repeated this. Jaeger (1985) correctly identifies the type as James & Thrupp s.n. but did not recognize the fact that it constitutes two gatherings. Lester (unpublished manuscript) erroneously added Edith Cole s.n. to the type citation of S. melastomoides.