Flora of New Zealand Series

hairy nightshade

Much-branched, unarmed, viscid, densely glandular-hairy annual, with low spreading, bushy habit. Stems to c. 50 cm long. Petioles to 2 cm long. Lamina 2-7 × 1.5-4 cm, ovate or rhombic-ovate, with simple and glandular hairs, coarsely serrate-dentate to nearly entire; base cuneate; apex obtuse or acute. Cymes ± racemose, or pseudoumbellate; fls 3-9; peduncles 5-15 mm long, > pedicels, deflexed at fruiting. Calyx 1-3 mm long at anthesis, strongly accrescent and enveloping lower part of berry at fruiting; lobes lanceolate to elliptic. Corolla 9-10 mm diam., white, generally with purple tinge outside; lobes ± triangular, hairy outside. Anthers 1.5-2.3 mm long. Berry 8-10 mm diam., globose, mottled pale green or yellowish green and deep green; stone cells present. Seeds 1.5-2 mm diam., ellipsoid to obovoid or suborbicular.

N.: Bay of Plenty, Hawke's Bay; S.: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, C. Otago.

S. America 1968

Arable or recently disturbed land.

FL Nov-Apr.

Hairy nightshade was first observed in C. Otago in the 1940's and has spread rapidly fairly recently. It is now common or very common in most of the above provinces. Sometimes it is very troublesome in crops, and hairy nightshade berries are sometimes found as contaminants in processed peas, being harvested with them since they are of similar size. On light, dry soils plants are often stunted and have small lvs. Also, they are often dirty with soil particles adhering to the glandular-viscid hairs. Hairy nightshade has usually been identified as S. sarrachoides in N.Z. and elsewhere, but this is a distinct sp. (see, Edmonds, J. M., Jour. Linn. Soc. London (Bot.) 92(1): 1-38 (1986)). N.Z. specimens belong to var. nitidibaccatum (Bitter) Edmonds (S. nitidibaccatum Bitter). N.Z. plants have only 15-31 seeds per fr. [(3)-5-34 in var. nitidibaccatum; (23)-59-69-(93) in S. sarrachoides; Edmonds, loc. cit.].

The hybrid S. × procurrens Leslie has been collected at least once in N.Z. (CHR 234547, Sockburn, Christchurch, Healy, 22.4.1972). It was growing with the parents, S. nigrum and S. physalifolium, and is distinguished from them by the following combination of characters: indumentum of abundant short glandular and long simple hairs; calyx scarcely accrescent; corolla mauve or purple and < 5 mm diam., with lobes very narrow-linear; fr. green with pale mottling; stone cells 0; seeds very few.