Solanum torreanum A.E.Gonç.

Climbing perennial herb to small shrub 0.5-3 m high, often ± sub-dichotomously branched, armed; hairs stellate, small, sessile or shortly stalked, regular or irregular, shortly and thinly radiate, occasionally with a longer central ray; prickles yellowish to fuscous, sometimes somewhat rusty-red, shining, 2-7 mm long, 0.7-4 mm wide at the base, broad based, laterally compressed or only so downwards, strongly recurved to ± straight, striate downwards, smooth upwards, often quite glabrous. Branches with a few stellate hairs, more abundant at the tips when young, occasionally reduced to the persistent stalk base when older, soon glabrescent, with scattered prickles. Leaves solitary, drying blackish; petiole 0.2-2.5 cm long; lamina membranous, 1-6 x 0.5-3.5 cm, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, base truncate, sub-rounded or sub-cordate, rarely ± cuneate, unequal-sided, apex acute or obtuse, sinuate to deeply lobed, the lobes ovate or sub-triangular to nearly oblong, obtuse or sub-acute, entire to shortly lobulate, the terminal one longer, both surfaces with ± sparse stellate hairs and rarely also few minute, sessile glands, sometimes quite glabrous above, lower surface paler and more densely hairy when young, very often with a few straight or slightly curved prickles scattered along the nerves, mainly on the midrib beneath, with 3-4 pairs of curved-ascending lateral nerves. Cymes lateral, leaf-remote, unbranched, racemiform, 1.5-3.5 cm across, 2-8-flowered, occasionally the flowers solitary, with a few hairs and usually also some recurved prickles; peduncle 0-5(10) mm long; rhachis 3-20 mm long. Flowers usually all hermaphrodite and fertile, 5-merous, laxly disposed; pedicels 7-16 mm long, filiform but thickened distally, with ± sparse hairs and a few short prickles, suberect, in fruit elongated to 18 mm, deflexed. Calyx 4-5 mm long and 4-7 mm across, ± campanulate, somewhat accrescent, deeply lobed, ± hairy to subglabrous and usually ± prickly; lobes ± unequal, 3-4 x 0.7-1 mm, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate and acuminate, in fruit enlarged to 7 x 2 mm. Corolla violet to lilacineous, 12-15 mm long, campanulate-stelliform or stelliform; limb 15-25(30) mm across; lobes 8-12 x 3-5.5 mm, oblong to ovate or narrowly triangular or lanceolate, acuminate, ± tomentose or hairy outside and glabrous or with a few stellate hairs along the midrib inside, recurved. Stamen filaments 0.7-1 mm long; anthers 6-8 x 1-1.5 mm, oblong-linear or elliptic-lanceolate in outline, emarginate at both ends. Ovary 1-1.3 mm in diameter or length, subglobose, glabrous; style 12-16 mm long, exceeding the stamens, straight but recurved at the apex. Fruit very shining, olivaceous or yellowish to deep red, drying blackish, 8-12 mm in diameter, globose. Seeds shining, pale yellowish, ± numerous, 2.5-3.5 x 2-3 mm, very compressed, reniform or lenticular, minutely reticulate all over.