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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Solanaceae
Solanum eremophilum

Citation: F. Muell., Linnaea 25:432 (1853).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
A dwarf herbaceous perennial to 10-15 cm high; stems with few branches and flowering close to the base; prickles 5-8 mm long, straight, reddish, scattered on stems, petioles, leaf surfaces, peduncles and the calyx; all parts covered with a close tomentum of stellate hairs, also minute simple glandular hairs, general aspect rusty-green; leaves concolorous, 3-4.5 x 1.5-3.5 cm, ovate, with 7-9 main lobes, sinuses shallow and rounded, cut to one-third or less of the way to the midrib, lobes themselves rounded or with an undulate margin, leaf base truncate or rounded; petiole 1.5-4 cm long.

Inflorescence a 2-7-flowered cyme; peduncle c. 1 cm long (to first flower); floral rhachis 2-6 cm long; pedicels 1-2.5 cm long; calyx tube 2-3 mm long, prickly; lobes 3-6 mm long, broad-lanceolate, scarcely prickly; corolla 2.5-3 cm diam., broadly stellate, lobes cut to half way, interacuminal tissue not well developed, lobe apex rounded, acumen scarcely developed; filaments 1-2 mm long; anthers 4-5 mm long, stoutly lanceolate, divergently erect, dark-tipped at least with age; ovary globular to broadly conical, glabrous or with a few glandular hairs towards the summit; style 5-10 mm long, erect, firm, flushed with pale purple about the middle, stigma capitate, bluntly 2-fid, green, upper portion of style and stigma slightly bent to one side but not hooked.

Berry rare, greenish, calyx covering the base of the fruit.

image of FSA3_Solanum_ere.jpg Flowering and fruiting branch and a fruit.
Image source: fig. 575A in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Symon (1981) J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 4:184.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: FR, NL.   N.S.W.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Nov. — March, but few records.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: A localised species of interest as it may be a hybrid between S. petrophilum R. Br. and S. esurtale Lindley and more information on its biology is needed (cf. Symon (1976) S. Aust. Nat. 51:50-51).

Author: Not yet available


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