YASIN J. NASIR

A prickly undershrub, 1.5-2 m tall, with dense stellate-tomentose parts. Prickles up to 10 mm long, erect to slightly recurved. Leaves 4-15 x 3.5-9 cm, ovate to oblong-ovate, repand, acute, both surfaces stellately hairy and prickly on the nerves. Petiole up to 2.5 cm long. Flowers 4-15 in number, bluish-purple, in extra-axillary cymes. Calyx ± 4 mm long, campanulate, stellately hairy. Corolla limb 18-20 mm broad; lobes acute. Anthers 6-7 mm long; filaments glabrous. Ovary and style pilose-pubescent. Berry globose, (5-)8-10 mm broad, glabrescent, yellow. Seeds ± 3 mm long, subreniform, minutely reticulate, foveolate.

Fl. Per.: Mostly throughout the year.

Type: Described from Madagascar, Commerson (MPU, syntype P).

Distribution: S. & S. E. Asia, Arabia and tropical Africa.

Rare in our area. Found in waste places in plains and the subhimalayan tracts up to 1600 m. According to Hepper (l.c.), the true Solanum indicum L. is a synonym of Solanum ferox L.