乳茄 ru qie

Herbs or shrubs, erect, ca. 1 m tall, copiously armed, villous throughout with mixed stellate and simple, partly glandular hairs. Stems pilose with glandular simple hairs, armed with needlelike, sometimes slightly curved yellowish prickles 4-12 × 3-5 mm. Leaves mostly paired; petiole 2.5-8 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate or suborbicular, 5-12 × 5-10 cm, (3-)5(-7)-lobed, villous, armed on major veins with needlelike prickles 0.8-2 cm, base cordate, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescences extra-axillary, scorpioid-racemose, 3- or 4-flowered; peduncle obsolete. Pedicel 5-10 mm. Calyx pubescent as on stems, sometimes armed; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 5-6 mm. Corolla purple, 2.5-3.2 cm in diam.; lobes oblong-lanceolate, 2-2.2 × 0.4 cm, villous abaxially. Stamens subequal; filaments ca. 1 mm; anthers narrow, lanceolate, 1-1.2 cm. Style ca. 3 mm. Berry yellow, darkening with age, pyriform, 4.5-7 × 3-4 cm, with 1-5 papillate protuberances at base; mesocarp white, spongy. Seeds dark brown, somewhat compressed, 3-4 mm in diam. Fl. summer, fr. autumn.

200-1300 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan [native to South America].