Solanum villosum Mill.
red-berried nightshade
Unarmed annual with ± erect stems to c. 40 cm tall, much-branched and somewhat bushy, moderately hairy, especially on young parts; hairs simple, of 2 types: antrorse, subappressed and scattered or short, erect, and glandular; stems often black. Petioles < 2 cm long. Lamina to 7 × 5 cm, broadly ovate or elliptic-ovate, becoming glabrate above, remaining hairy beneath, especially towards base, usually shallowly and sinuately lobed or with 1-2 teeth each side, less often entire; margins with dense simple hairs and numerous glandular hairs; base broad-cuneate; apex acute. Cymes pseudoumbellate, with up to 6 fls; peduncles to c. 10 mm long at anthesis, densely covered in antrorse hairs and a few glandular ones; pedicels ± recurved at fruiting. Calyx 1-2 mm long; lobes ovate or triangular-ovate, becoming reflexed, somewhat accrescent. Corolla 8-11 mm diam., white; lobes ± triangular, densely hairy outside. Anthers 1.7-2 mm long. Berry 6-10 mm diam., globose or nearly so, reddish or orange-yellow; stone cells 0. Seeds 1.8-2.2 mm diam., obovoid to ± ellipsoid or almost reniform.
N.: only known from the Gisborne area, collected twice in 20 years, once as a weed of arable land; S.: Christchurch, seen once in the Middleton Railway Yards.
Possibly Eurasia 1969
FL Nov-Mar.
Plants were raised at Lincoln from the Gisborne area in order to obtain the diagnostic reddish or orange-yellow frs which immediately distinguish the sp. from all fr. colour forms of S. nigrum which they otherwise resemble. The N.Z. plants agree with descriptions of the sp. in Australia (e.g., Symon, loc. cit.). In Australia, plants can also be only moderately rather than densely hairy as they apparently often are in Europe. The sp. has been recorded previously as S. miniatum, S. nigrum var. miniatum and S. nigrum var. puniceum in N.Z. Elsewhere it is very often recorded as S. luteum Miller.
