Flora of New Zealand Series

apple of Sodom

Perennial shrub or subshrub to 1-(3) m tall, ± stellate-hairy, branched, strongly armed; prickles yellow, to c. 1 cm long, glabrous or nearly so. Petioles to c. 5 cm long, prickly. Lamina to c. 9-(20) × 7-(13) cm, ovate to oblong, deeply pinnatisect, scarcely lobed in seedlings; lobes irregular, sinuate, with rounded apices, extending to ⅞ to midrib, with hairs scattered above and ± dense below, sometimes glabrate except for prickles on midrib and main veins; base truncate to rounded. Cymes few-flowered; pedicels to c. 1 cm long, densely stellate-hairy, ± pendent at fruiting; peduncle densely stellate-hairy. Calyx 3-12 mm long, often densely stellate-hairy, sometimes prickly, accrescent; lobes ovate to oblong, c. = tube. Corolla (2)-2.5-3.5-(4) cm diam., mauve or violet, stellate-hairy outside; lobes broadly ovate. Anthers 4-6 mm long. Berry 1.5-3-(3.5) cm diam., globose or nearly so, mottled green and white when immature, yellow at maturity; stone cells 0. Seeds c. 3 mm diam., subglobose to broad-obovoid.

N.: coastal and inland lowland areas as far S. as Taranaki and Hawke's Bay.

Northern regions of Africa 1883

Common in sandy coastal habitats, also in poor pastures and scrub margins.

FL Sep-May.

Apple of Sodom appears to be increasing in some areas, and like some other prickly and shrubby Solanum spp., it often forms dense stands in poor pastures, especially in N. Auckland. It is the commonest of the prickly Solanum spp. in N.Z. and can be distinguished from the others by the combination of a perennial woody habit with non-suckering roots, green lvs, mauve or violet fls and a fr. which is mottled green and white at first, becomes yellow and is not invested by an accrescent calyx. It has often been known in N.Z. as S. sodomeum or occasionally as S. hermannii.