Solanum capsicoides All.

Allioni's name for the species was validly published and the description alone is ample enough for definitive determination, even without the photograph of the type at TO kindly furnished to me by Dr. B. L. Burtt of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. The quite fitting epithet "capsicoides" is found on several old herbarium specimens in European herbaria, including on the type of S. ciliatum Lam., but it was never investigated nor taken up by later botanists. The name was also omitted from Index Kewensis and has rested in limbo until recently.The specimens here admitted as types of S. pentapetaloides have diverse and confusing label data but are undoubtedly all authentic. The species would perhaps be better lectotypified from one of the several sheets of S. capsicoides from the Hornemann herbarium at C, more specifically the one labelled "Solanum pentapetaloides Roxb. Legi in Rio Janeiro 1811" and "ex Ind. Orient. ded. Wallich". I have not been able to trace the details of the history of the type sheets, but evidently Wallich collected the species in Rio de Janeiro and introduced it into cultivation at Calcutta. A sheet at K (=Nee photo 634) has the following label: "Solan. pentapetaloides Roxb. Cat. Hort. Calc. What species is this? I cannot make it square with any of the [illegible] species. Intr. by Dr. Wallich from Rio de Janeiro into the B. G. Calc. in 1807."Solanum capsicoides has some peculiarities which would seem to adapt it to the naturally disturbed habitats of the sandy restingas. It is a a lower growing, more spreading species than its erect and single-stemmed relatives of mesic and wooded habitats such as S. acerifolium or S. atropurpureum.Winged seeds are probably an adaptation to local wind or water dispersal after passing of the seeds by birds in these relatives with small juicy berries. The seeds have become much broader in S. capsicoides and it is significant that they not only are blown around more easily than those of S. atropurpureum but that they also float for a few days. There seems no longer to be any provision for animal dispersal of the fruits of S. capsicoides since they regularly are found on herbarium specimens in the mature state; they are nearly dry at maturity and split irregularly to permit the seeds to escape in a not very effective shaker mechanism. The development (or retention?) of the striking bright orange-red color of the fruits in this context is difficult to explain.Despite the considerable confusion in nomenclature involving this species, it is one of the most easily recognized and least variable in sect. Acanthophora. The large bright orange-red fruit and large straw colored seeds maintain their bright colors in all but the most poorly preserved herbarium specimens. The leaves are distinctive, appearing glabrous but for the sparse silky hairs; it is the only species in the section, and to my knowledge in subgen. Leptostemonum, without stellae on any part of the plant. The calyx with stout spines from enlarged, almost bulbous bases is distinctive in the section. It could be confused with extremes of S. atropurpureum which have shallowly lobed leaves, but this latter species has much smaller yellow fruits and yellowish rather than white corollas as well as stellae (even if only a few and confined to the base of the sinuses) on the underside of the leaf. Solanum aculeatissimum with which it has often been unnecessarily confused, is easily distinguished by the non-winged seeds, more copious glandular pubescence, and the presence of stellae on the underside of the leaf.

Sometimes cultivated for its bright, ornamental fruits that are poisonous.

Comments: Native to eastern Brazil; widely cultivated, and frequently escaped.

"Kerala: Alapuzha, Idukki, Kottayam, Pathanamthitta Tamil Nadu: Nilgiri"