毛茄 mao qie

Solanum immane Hance ex Walpers; S. lasiocarpum var. velutinum Dunal.

Herbs or subshrubs, erect or spreading, 1-1.5 m tall, armed, densely pubescent throughout with pale yellow, many-celled stellate hairs. Stems and branches stout, with flat, erect or slightly recurved prickles 1-8 mm. Petiole 3-8 cm, often with stalked, stellate hairs and erect prickles; leaf blade ovate, 10-20 × 8-18 cm, pubescent as on stems, denser abaxially, prickly along veins on both surfaces, base truncate or subhastate, margin 5-11-sinuate lobed, apex acute. Inflorescences extra-axillary, several flowered, scorpioid-racemose, 1.2-2 cm; peduncle ca. 3 mm. Flowers andromonoecious. Pedicel ca. 1 cm. Calyx lobes ovate, 8-10 mm. Corolla white, subrotate, 1-1.2 × 2 cm. Filaments very short; anthers lanceolate, acuminate, 7-8 mm. Style ca. 9 mm, glabrous. Fruiting pedicel erect, 1-1.5 cm. Fruiting calyx somewhat enlarged, reflexed. Berry orange, globose, ca. 2 cm in diam., densely stellate hirsute, tomentum persistent. Seeds brown, ca. 2 mm in diam. Fl. Jun-Oct, fr. Nov-Dec.

Wet places in ravines and valleys, thickets, open forests, near roads, humid places, dense forests; 200-1000 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Taiwan, S and SE Yunnan [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].