Lycianthes rantonnetii
2n=24 (Gerasimenko and Reznikova 1968, cited in D’Arcy (1974); Acosta et al. (2005).)
Lycianthes ratonnetii occurs in Native to South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and southern Brazil) in thickets and woodlands, weedy in disturbed areas along roadsides, 100-2000 m in elevation. Horticulturally widely distributed worldwide.
Acosta, M. C., G. Bernardello, M. Guerra, and E. A. Moscone. 2005. Karyotype analysis in several South American species of Solanum and Lycianthes rantonnei (Solanaceae). Taxon 54: 713–723. Barboza, G. 2013. Lycianthes In:
Barboza GE. (Coord.) Solanaceae. Flora Vascular de la República Argentina, Dicotyledoneae, Vol. 13. IBODA-IMBIV, CONICET. San Isidro. Pp 25–30.
Barboza, G. and A. Hunziker. 1992. Estudios sobre Solanaceae XXXIII. El Genero Lycianthes en la Argentina. Darwiniana 31: 17-34.
Bitter G. 1919. Die Gattung Lycianthes. Abhandlungen herausgegeban vom Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein zu Bremen 24 [preprint]: 292–520.
Carrière, E. 1859. Solanum rantonnei. Revue Horticole 32: 135–138.
D’Arcy, W. 1974. Solanum and its close relatives in Florida. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 61: 819-867. (Discussion of differing spelling of specific epithet.)
Dean E (In Press) Lycianthes. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee (Eds.): Flora of North America North of Mexico. New York and Oxford.
Dean, E., J. Poore, M. A. Anguiano-Constante, M. H. Nee, T. Starbuck, A. Rodrigues, and M. Conner. 2020. The genus Lycianthes (Solanaceae, Capsiceae) in Mexico and Guatemala. PhytoKeys 168: 1–333.
Shaw, J. and H. Shaw. 2004. Proposal to conserve the name Solanum rantonnetii (Solanaceae) with that spelling. Taxon 53: 1077-1078.
Argentina. Meloncillo del aire (Barboza and Hunziker 1992).
Lycianthes rantonnetii is a popular horticultural plant, often flowering prolifically throughout the year (depending on climate) and dying back to near the ground in cold temperatures. The species is widely planted in Mexico and California. Viable seeds are produced in Mexican plants, but in California, the fruits are often sterile, without viable seeds; it has been documented as persisting in the wild in southern California, but it is unknown whether viable seeds are being produced (Dean, In Press).
The species was named for M. Victor Rantonnet, 19th century French horticulturist of Hyères, a town on the Mediterranean coast of southern France (Carrière 1859). The spelling of the epithet was first published as “rantonnei” in March of 1859 (Carrière 1859) and changed to rantonnetii by Lescuyer in the later months of 1859 (D’Arcy 1974). Retaining the spelling as Lycianthes rantonnetii was upheld by recent editors of the International Plants Name Index citing Art. 60.7 of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (Shaw and Shaw 2004). In the protologue, Carrière (1859) described Solanum rantonnetii from horticultural material grown in Hyères. He says that the seeds were brought to France in ca. 1849 by a naval officer from the region of La Plata [assumed to be Argentina], and after being grown at Toulon, plants were then shared with Rantonnet. No herbarium specimens were cited by Carrière, but the protologue does have a detailed illustration (Carrière 1859, fig. 32, pg. 135) which serves as the type.