光枝木龙葵 guang zhi mu long kui

Solanum suffruticosum, S. chousboe var. merrillianum (Liou) C. Y. Wu. & S. C. Huang.

Herbs or subshrubs 0.5-1.5 m tall. Stems woody, rooting at nodes, with herbaceous shoots; twigs slender, angled, sparingly puberulent with short, ascending simple hairs. Petiole slender, 0.5-2 cm; leaf blade ovate, 2-8 × 1.5-4.5 cm, puberulent with scattered, arched simple hairs, glabrescent, base cuneate, decurrent, margin subentire, shallowly sinuate-dentate, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescences cymose panicles 2-3 cm across, sometimes reduced to simple racemes; peduncle 2-3 cm, mostly several times dichotomously branched, slender. Pedicel 7-9(-12) mm, slender, pubescent, sometimes articulate just above base. Calyx cup-shaped, sparingly pubescent; lobes ovate-rounded, slightly unequal, 0.4-0.6 mm, ciliate. Corolla white, 4-6 × 5 mm, lobed halfway; lobes 2-3 mm, acute, ciliate, pubescent abaxially. Filaments equal, 0.5 mm, pubescent; anthers oblong, 1.5-1.7 mm. Style ca. 4 mm, tomentose at base. Fruiting pedicel 0.8-1.2 cm; fruiting calyx not enlarged. Berry black or black-blue, globose, 4-5 mm across. Seeds numerous, discoid or ovate, ca. 1.5 mm across. Fl. and fr. throughout the year.

* Slopes, near roadsides; low elevations. Anhui (Maanshan Shi), Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan.