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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Solanaceae
Solanum pseudocapsicum

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 184 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Winter cherry, Jerusalem cherry, Madeira winter cherry.

Description:
A shrub 1-2 m tall, green, often with somewhat erect branches, glabrous or with a sparse tomentum of varied hairs (minute simple multicellular, minute simple glandular and multicellular dendritic) mainly on twigs or young growth, later glabrescent, general aspect concolorous; leaves c. 5-8 x 1-1.5 cm, elliptic, acute or acuminate, margins slightly undulate, veins prominent below, blade cuneate along most of the petiole; petiole 1-1.5 cm long.

Inflorescence of solitary or few flowers on a short common peduncle 5-10 mm long from an internode; pedicel c. I cm long, at first deflexed, later erect in fruit; calyx tube c. 2 mm long; lobes 2-3 mm long, triangular; corolla c. 1 cm diam., stellate, white; filaments very short; anthers c. 2 mm long, thick in relation to length, with apical pores; style erect, projecting 1-2 mm beyond the anthers.

Fruit 1-1.5 cm diam., globular, often solitary on a peduncle c. 1 cm long, a bright orange-red when ripe, fleshy and succulent; calyx lobes not much enlarged, covering the base of the berry; seeds flat, c. 3 mm diam., pale-buff or yellow, with a thickened margin slightly deeper in colour, surface minutely granular.

image of FSA3_Solanum_pse.jpg Flowering and fruiting branch and a fruit.
Image source: fig. 578A in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Cunningham et al. (1982) Plants of western New South Wales, p. 588.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: EP, NL, SL, KI.   All mainland States.   Native to Argentina, now a widespread weed in tropical areas.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: Nov. — Feb. but few records.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Uses: Widely grown as a decorative shrub. It is adventive in suburban gardens and sparingly naturalised in some mesic sites in the Mt Lofty Ranges.

Author: Not yet available


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