Solanum inaequilaterale (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Solanum inaequilaterale Merrill

Family: Solanaceae

The Philippines (Luzon, Mindanao).

The leaves used to be smoked by the Moro-Subanuns.

An unarmed, more or less stellately pubescent shrub up to 3 m tall. Leaves alternate; petiole 2-3 cm long; blade oblong-ovate, unequally sided, subentire to undulate, base obtuse to cuneate, apex acute or acuminate, pubescent below. Flowers in an extra-axillary cyme on a peduncle up to 5 cm long; calyx truncate or obscurely 5-toothed, about 4 mm long; corolla pale purple, tube 2 mm long, lobes 5, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acute, about 9 mm × 3 mm; stamens 5, anthers adnate; ovary superior, 2-locular, style about 6 mm long. Fruit a globose berry, about 7 mm in diameter, glabrous, shiny. Seed 2-2.5 mm in diameter. S. inaequilaterale is found in thickets, chiefly in or near the moss forest, at 1300-2400 m altitude. It may prove to represent just an unarmed form of the closely related S. torvum Swartz.

14, 44, 46, 47.

M.S.M. Sosef