Valentine nightshade

Herbs, annual, erect, moderately armed, to 0.35 m, prickles whitish or yellowish, needlelike, to 5 mm, usually less than 20 per cm of stem, moderately pubescent with stipitate glands 0.5–1 mm mixed with sparse, unbranched, eglandular hairs 1–2 mm, abaxial leaf surfaces with sparse, sessile to short-stalked, stellate hairs, 2–4-rayed, central ray equal to lateral rays. Leaves petiolate; petiole 0.5–3 cm; blade simple, ovate to elliptic, 3–8 × 1.5–4 cm, margins deeply lobed to pinnatifid with 3–4 lobes per side, these shallowly lobed, base obtuse. Inflorescences extra-axillary, unbranched, 5–8-flowered, 8–12 cm. Pedicels 0.4–1 cm in flower, 1–1.8 cm and erect in fruit. Flowers bilaterally sym­metric; calyx accrescent and tightly covering fruit, moderately prickly, 4–6 mm, moderately pubescent, lobes narrowly triangular; corolla white, rotate-stellate, 2–2.5 cm diam., with abundant interpetalar tissue; stamens unequal, lowermost much longer and curved; anthers narrow and tapered, dehiscent by terminal pores, short anthers 5–6 mm, longer anther 9–11 mm; ovary glabrous. Berries brown, globose, 1–1.2 cm diam., glabrous, dry, without sclerotic granules. Seeds dark brown, flattened, reniform, ca. 1.5 × 1 mm, reticulately ridged.

Flowering Sep–Nov. Open and disturbed areas; 1300–1900 m; Tex.

Solanum cordicitum is currently known only from three collections from Jeff Davis County.