水茄 shui qie

Shrubs 1-2(-3) m tall, sparingly armed, densely pubescent overall with many-rayed, grayish stellate hairs. Stems with stout, recurved, reddish or pale-yellow prickles 2.5-10 × 2-10 mm and sometimes bearing basal stellate hairs. Leaves solitary or paired; petiole 2-4 cm; leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 6-16(-19) × 4-11(-13) cm, with yellow, many-branched stellate hairs, armed or unarmed, base cordate or cuneate, margin sinuate or usually 5-7-lobed, apex acute. Inflorescences extra-axillary, many-flowered racemose panicles; peduncle mostly 1- or 2-branched, 1-1.8 cm, stellate pubescent. Flowers andromonoecious. Pedicel dark, slender, 5-12 mm, bearing simple glandular hairs and stalked stellate hairs. Calyx cup-shaped, 4-5 mm, pubescence as on pedicel; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 mm. Corolla white, rotate, 1-1.3 × 1-1.5 cm; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 8-10 mm, stellate pubescent abaxially. Filaments ca. 1 mm; anthers 4-7 mm. Style 6-8 mm. Fruiting pedicel 1-2 cm, thickened upwards, with sparse stellate and simple glandular hairs. Fruiting calyx ca. 1.5 cm. Berry yellow, smooth, glabrous, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Seeds discoid, 1.5-2 mm in diam. Fl. and fr. throughout the year.

Roadsides, wastelands, ravines, valleys, thickets, wet places near villages; 200-2000 m. Fujian (Xiamen Shi), Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, S Xizang, Yunnan [native of the Caribbean, widely naturalized in tropical regions]

The young fruits are edible after cooking and are used medicinally for improving eyesight; the leaves are used for treating skin diseases.