464 SOLANACEAE ' • , - 



6. SOLANUML. Nightshade 



Herbs or the stems sometimes suft'rutescent. Flowers in umbels, cymes or ra- 

 cemes borne on short lateral or terminal peduncles. Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 

 rotate, 5-lobed, with scarcely any tube. Anthers almost sessile, lightly connate into 

 a cylinder surrounding the style, opening by a small pore at the apex or longitudi- 

 nally dehiscent. Fruit a berry with several seeds. — Species about 1200, all conti- 

 nents. (Latin name of the Nightshade, from solamen, quieting.) 



Stems unarmed. 



Peduncles much shorter than the pedicels or almost none, thickened into a cupulate node at 

 the insertion of the pedicels; corolla large (mostly V2 to 1% inches broad), 5-angled 

 or 5-lobed, with greenish glands at base; perennial. 

 Leaf -blades entire (rarely a few blades with 1 or 2 pairs of teeth or lobes at base). 

 Herbage viscidulous (except in 3 vars. of no. 1) ; hairs mostly unbranched. 



Leaf-blades entire (rarely with a pair of teeth or lobes at base) ; mainland, 



mostly of the interior 1. 5. xantii. 



Leaf-blades crenate; Santa Barbara Isls 2. S. wallacei. 



Herbage not viscid ; hairs mostly branched ; leaf -blades commonly entire. 



Stems and leaves green ; Contra Costa Co. to Santa Clara Co... 3. S. umbelliferum. 



Stem and leaves white-tomentulose; Contra Costa Co. to Santa Barbara Co 



4. S. calif ornicum. 

 Leaf -blades mostly hastate, that is, with a pair of salient linear lobes at base ; se. San 



Diego Co 5. S. tenuilobatuni. 



Peduncles longer than the pedicels ; corolla small, 5-clef t. 



Perennial; corolla 4 to 7 (or 8) lines broad; South Coast Ranges, S. Cal., Inyo Co 



6. S. douglasii. 

 Annual ; introduced weeds. 



Leaf -blades entire or toothed or undulate; corolla 1 to 2% (or 3%) lines broad. 



Herbage glabrous, the stem-angles scabrous; berry black 7. S. nigntm. 



Herbage villous ; berry yellow or green 8. S. villosum. 



Leaf -blades pinnately parted; corolla 3 to 4 lines broad; berry green 



9. S. irifiorum. 

 Stems armed with long straight prickles ; introduced weeds. 



Perennial; berry not enclosed in the calyx, the caUs not prickly 10. S. elaeagnifolium. 



Annual; berry wholly enclosed by the calys, the calyx prickly 11. S. rostratum. 



1. S. xantii Gray. Stems herbaceous, several to many from a woody root- 

 crown, erect or decumbent, sometimes prostrate, mostly simple, slender and sparsely 

 leaved, 11/2 to 2 feet high, the hairs minute and thin to dense and long, but always 

 spreading and more or less viscid; herbage typically gray-pubescent, sometimes 

 green ; leaf-blades thinuish, elliptic-ovate to naiTow-ovate, at base obtuse, truuca- 

 tish or subeordate, commonly entire, % to IV2 (or 3) inches long, the pubescence 

 thin, consisting of simple short or very minute hairs ; petioles 2 to 7 lines long, 

 furnished with hairs like the stems; flowers few in an umbel; pedicels and calyx 

 usually pubescent ; corolla light azure or fading darker blue (the center marked by 

 a pair of greenish spots below each lobe), 5 to 10 lines broad. 



Mountain slopes and foothills, 10 to 5300 (or 7000) feet : cismontane and intra- 

 montane Southern California from the Laguna, San Bernardino and San Gabriel 

 mountains to northern Ventura and Santa Barbara Cos. ; Tehachapi Mts. ; Sierra 

 Nevada from Kern Co. to Eldorado Co. ; South Coast Ranges from San Luis Obispo 

 Co. to Santa Clara Co. (rare in this area) ; North Coast Ranges from Marin Co. to 

 Humboldt Co. (intermediate to var. intermedium). South to Lower California 

 and east to Arizona. May- June. 



Note on polymorphism. — The habit of Solanum xantii is somewhat polymorphic ; leaf shape 

 and leaf size are markedly polymorphic, while pubescence and glandulosity vary markedly in de- 

 gree. The type locality is Fort Tejon. In this region, the region of the Tehachapi Mountains and 

 the mountains of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, this species is well developed. Although 

 no two collections from different stations in this area are alike in leafage and viscidity and often 

 unlike in aspect, they must be considered conspeeific with the botanical type, since such differences 

 as exist are not taxonomically important. For this region the following stations are cited: 

 Tehachapi Mts., Jepson 6716 (Eowen), 18,395 (Keene) ; Seymour Creek, Mt. Pinos, Hall 64S7; 

 Purisima Hills, n. Santa Barbara Co., Jepson 11,946 ; Sycamore Canon, Santa Inez Mts., Jepson 



Jepson, Flora of California, vol. 3, pt. 2, pp. 129-464, May 5, 1943. 



6 8 0!) 2r, 



