New Mexico nightshade

Solanum heterodoxum Dunal var. novomexicanum Bartlett, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 44: 628. 1909; Androcera novomexicana (Bartlett) Wooton & Standley

Herbs, annual, spreading, sparsely to moderately armed, 0.3–0.7 m, prickles whitish or yellowish, straight, tapered, 3–8 mm, usually 20 or fewer per cm of stem, densely pubescent with stipitate-glandular hairs 0.2–0.4 mm, abaxial leaf surfaces also with scattered, sessile, 4–6-rayed, stellate hairs, central ray equal to lateral rays. Leaves petiolate; petiole 2–7 cm; blade simple to compound, broadly ovate to deltate, 4–11 × 4–8 cm, margins bipinnately lobed to divided with 2–3 main leaflets per side, leaflets with obtuse or rounded lobes, base truncate. Inflorescences extra-axillary, unbranched, 5–9-flowered, 4–10 cm. Pedicels 1–1.5 cm in flower, erect and 1–1.5 cm in fruit. Flowers bilaterally symmetric; calyx accrescent and tightly covering fruit, densely prickly, 4.5–6.5 mm, densely glandular-pubescent, lobes lanceolate; corolla violet or blue, pentagonal-stellate, with narrowly deltate lobes, 1–1.5 cm diam., with sparse interpetalar tissue; stamens unequal, lowermost much longer and curved; anthers narrow and tapered, dehiscent by terminal pores, short anthers 2–4 mm, longer anther 3.5–5 mm; ovary glabrous. Berries brown, globose, 1–1.2 cm diam., glabrous, dry, without sclerotic granules. Seeds dark brown, flattened, 2.5–3 × 2–2.5 mm, reticulately wrinkled or merely undulate.

Flowering Jun–Sep. Gravelly or sandy soils, open hill­sides, arroyo banks, roadsides; 1900–2300 m; N.Mex.

Solanum novomexicanum is uncommon and endemic to the mountains of northcentral New Mexico.