Cakalaka Berry (Solanum tridynamum)

Description

Shrub or small treelet to 4 m, usually armed, but occasionally unarmed, dioecious; stems erect, unarmed or with a few straight, somewhat broad-based prickles to 0.7 cm long, densely stellate pubescent with sessile or short-stalked porrect trichomes with 7-10 rays ca. 0.2 mm long, the midpoint absent or minute; new growth densely stellate pubescent with trichomes like those of the stems, usually somewhat reddish; bark of lower stems dark brown.Leaves 2.5-6(-8) x 1.7-3(-4) cm, ovate to elliptic, membranous, the upper surface pubescent with porrect, sessile stellate trichomes with 4-9 rays ca. 0.2 mm long, the midpoint to ca. 0.5 mm, the lower surface densely pubescent with a mixture of sessile and short-stalked porrect stellate trichomes with 5-10 rays ca. 0.5 mm long, the midpoint minute, the lamina obscured by the dense pubescence; primary veins 6-7 pairs, not notably impressed above or below; base obtuse to cordate, often oblique; margins entire on mature leaves; apex acute; petiole 0.3-0.7 cm, densely stellate pubescent like the stems; leaves of juvenile plants with irregularly and shallowly lobed margins, prickles to 1.5 cm on the veins on the upper leaf surfaces.Inflorescences internodal, in male plants 3-5 cm long, with 20-30 flowers, in female plants consisting of a single, almost sessile flower, both densely pubescent with stellate trichomes like those of the stems; pedicels of male flowers 0.5-0.6 cm, ca. 1 mm in diameter, erect at anthesis, articulated at the base; pedicel scars in pairs ca. 1 mm apart; pedicels of female flowers 0.05-0.15 cm long, ca. 1 mm in diameter, erect at anthesis, articulated at the base. Buds ellipsoid, more or less included in the calyx tube until just before anthesis.Flowers unisexual, the plants dioecious; male (staminate) flowers with the calyx tube 1-1.5 mm, cup-shaped, the lobes 1-1.5 mm, rounded to almost orbicular, densely pubescent with a mixture of sessile and short-stalked porrect trichomes like those of the inflorescence; corolla 1-1.4 cm in diameter, white, stellate, lobed ca. 3/4 of the way to the base, the lobes 0.5-0.6 x 0.3-0.4 cm, planar at anthesis, glabrous adaxially, densely pubescent abaxially with sessile stellate trichomes; anthers 3-4.5 x ca. 1 mm, poricidal at the tips, the pores upwardly directed; free portion of the filaments 0.5-1 mm, the filament tube les than 0.5 mm, glabrous; ovary vestigial or completely absent; female (pistillate) flowers with the calyx tube ca. 0.5 mm, cup-shaped, the lobes 6-7 mm, rounded, densely stellate pubescent like the inflorescence, bearing prickles 3-4 mm long, these reddish with darker bases, the prickles occasionally also on the tube; corolla 2.5-2.8 cm in diameter, white, stellate, lobed ca. 3/4 of the way to the base, the lobes 0.9-1.3 x 0.5-0.6 cm, planar at anthesis, glabrous above and densely stellate pubescent below, the trichomes sessile; anthers vestigial (not pollen-bearing), ca. 3 x 0.5 mm; free portion of the filaments and the filament tube both less than 0.5 mm; ovary conical, densely stellate pubescent, the trichomes sessile with midpoints to 1 mm; style ca. 4 mm long, densely stellate pubescent, the trichomes sessile with midpoints to 1 mm, sparser towards the apex; stigma 2-lobed, to 1.5 mm in diameter.Fruit a globose berry, fleshy, ca. 2 cm in diameter, green, ripening orange or reddish, the pericarp thin, sparsely stellate pubescent with sessile porrect trichomes with 4-10 rays, the midpoints to 2 mm long; fruiting pedicels ca. 0.7 cm, 1-5-2 mm in diameter at the base, woody, erect; calyx lobes in fruit to 1.5 cm long.