Solanum santosii S.Knapp

  • Authority

    Knapp, Sandra D. 2002. section (Solanaceae). Fl. Neotrop. Monogr. 84: 1-404. (Published by NYBG Press)

  • Family

    Solanaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Solanum santosii S.Knapp

  • Type

    Type. Brazil, Bahia: Mun. Ilhéus, CEPEC (Centro de Pesquisas da Cacau) inventory area, quadrat D, km 22 Ilhéus-Itabuna (BR415), 50 m, 10 Sep 1982, T.S dos Santos 3797 (holotype, CEPEC; isotype, F).

  • Description

    Species Description - Shrubs, 1.5-3 m tall; young stems glabrous or with a few uniseriate trichomes along the angles, soon becoming glabrous, green, and shiny; older stems slightly winged from the decurrent petioles. Sympodial units difoliate, usually geminate. Leaves elliptic, widest at the middle, glabrous and shiny adaxially, glabrous abaxially with a few white, simple, uniseriate trichomes in the vein axils, the trichomes arising from the veins and not from the leaf lamina, the leaf margins slightly crisped; major leaves 12-15 x 4.5-6.5 cm, with 7-8 pairs of main lateral veins, these drying yellowish, the apex acute to acuminate, the base acute, oblique, minutely decurrent onto the petiole and stem; petioles 0.8-1.2 cm long, winged from the decurrent leaf bases; minor leaves differing from the majors only in size, 3.5-5.5 x 2.2-3.7 cm, the apex acute, the base acute; petioles 3-5 mm long. Inflorescences opposite the leaves, simple, 1-2.5 cm long, 10-20-flowered, glabrous;pedicel scars closely spaced, not overlapping. Buds ellipsoid, the tip pointed, the corolla strongly exserted from the calyx tube. Pedicels at anthesis erect or slightly deflexed, 1.2-1.5 cm long, filiform, tapering from the calyx tube to a base ca. 0.25 mm diam. Flowers with the calyx tube broadly conical, very short, ca. 0.5 mm long, the lobes broadly spathulate, the apex fleshy and enlarged, perhaps knob-like when fresh, 0.51 mm long, the sinuses rounded; corolla green or greenish-white, 0.8-1 cm diam., lobed nearly to the base, the lobes planar at anthesis, the tips of the lobes minutely papillose; anthers 2-2.5 x ca. 1 mm, slightly sagittate, poricidai at the tips, the pores teardrop shaped; free portion of the filaments ca. 0.2 mm long, the filament tube ca. 0.25 mm long; ovary glabrous; style erect, 5-6 mm long; stigma minutely bilobed, the surface minutely papillose. Fruit a globose, green berry, 1-1.3 cm diam., fruiting pedicels woody, deflexed, 2-2.5 cm long, ca. 0.5 mm diam. at the base. Seeds dark brown in dry material, flattened-reniform with thickened margins, 34 x 2-2.5 mm, the surfaces minutely pitted. Chromosome number not known.

  • Discussion

    Solanum santosii is most similar to S. warmingii and S. caavurana, also of southeastern Brazil. It differs from those species in its much smaller flowers and smaller calyx lobes. Both S. warmingii and S. caavurana have expanded, petaloid, calyx lobes. Neither of those two species grows in the wet forest of coastal Bahia, the habitat of S. santosii.

    Solanum santosii has only been collected in the CEPEC forest inventory plot between Ilhéus and Itabuna. This area is somewhat secondary in nature (de Carvalho, pers. comm.) and I suspect S. santosii grows in light gaps in the forest as do many other members of the S. nudum species group. It is apparently not a common plant, and it is surprising that it had not been collected before 1978, having been overlooked by the numerous botanists who have worked around the city of Ilhéus since the early 1800s.

  • Distribution

    In wet forest (“mata higrófila”) in southern Bahia, near sea level. Known only from the type locality.

    Brazil South America| Bahia Brazil South America|