Solanum palitans

Description. Annual, decumbent or prostrate herbs, the young plants sometimes erect, up to 15 cm tall often rooting at the lower nodes, forming dense patches, the branches to ca. 1 m long. Stems decumbent or ascending, terete or somewhat angled with ridges, green, older stems yellowish-brown, not markedly hollow; new growth pubescent with simple, spreading, uniseriate, translucent, eglandular trichomes, these 0.5 - 1 mm long, to or nearly glabrous; older stems glabrous. Sympodial units difoliate, the leaves not geminate. Leaves simple, 2.5 - 9 cm long, 2.5 - 7.5 cm wide, broadly ovate, thinly membranous, green, concolorous, without smell; adaxial surfaces glabrous to sparsely pubescent with simple hairs to 0.5 mm on the major veins; abaxial surfaces glabrous; major veins 3 - 4 pairs; base long attenuate, decurrent on the petiole; margins 3 - lobed nearly to the midrib, rarely the lateral lobes themselves lobed, the terminal lobe ovate, the lateral lobes asymmetrically ovate or lanceolate-ovate, acute at the tips, the sinuses sometimes sparsely ciliate; apex acute; petioles 0.5 - 2 cm, winged to the base, glabrous or sometimes sparsely ciliate near the base. Inflorescences 1.2 - 2.5 cm, internodal or often just below a node, unbranched or rarely with a few branches, the flowers spaced along the rhachis, with 4 - 9 flowers, glabrous to sparsely pubescent; peduncle 0.7 - 1.4 cm long, delicate; pedicels 3 - 5 mm long, 0.2 - 0.3 mm in diameter at the base and at the apex, filiform, spreading, articulated at the base; pedicel scars spaced 1 - 5 mm apart. Buds ellipsoid, the corolla completely covered by the calyx tube before anthesis. Flowers 5 - merous, all perfect. Calyx tube 1.5 - 2 mm long, cup-shaped, the lobes ca. 0.75 - 1.5 mm long, less than 1 mm wide, lanceolate-oblong, the tips acute, glabrous. Corolla ca. 7 mm in diameter, white or rarely light violet, rotate-stellate, lobed ca. 1 / 2 way to the base, the lobes 1.5 - 2.5 mm long, 1 - 2 mm wide at the base, reflexed or spreading at anthesis, abaxially minutely white-puberulent on the tips of the lobes, glabrous adaxially. Stamens equal; filament tube minute; free portion of the filaments 0.5 - 1 mm long, adaxially pubescent with tangled uniseriate trichomes; anthers 1.6 - 2 mm long, 0.7 - 0.8 mm wide, oblong or ellipsoid, yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age and drying. Ovary glabrous; style 2.3 - 3.3 mm long, glabrous or sparsely pubescent in the lower part where included in the anther cone, exserted 0.5 - 0.8 mm beyond anthers; stigma capitate, the surface minutely papillate, green in live plants. Fruit a depressed-globose and bilobed (especially when young) berry, 6 - 8 mm in diameter, pale yellow, the pericarp thin and somewhat shiny; fruiting pedicels 4 - 7 mm long, 0.5 - 0.7 mm in diameter at the base and at the apex, spreading, recurved at the base to hold the fruit downwards, nearly in contact with the soil, dropping with the mature fruit, not persistent; fruiting calyx not markedly accrescent but the lobes somewhat elongating in fruit, the tube 2 - 3 mm long, the lobes 2 - 3 (- 4) mm long, covering the basal 1 / 3 of the berry, the tips somewhat recurved. Seeds 20 ??? 30 per berry, 1.5 - 1.6 mm long, 1.2 - 1.6 mm wide, flattened reniform, light yellow, the surfaces pitted, the testal cells sinuate in outline. Stone cells 2 (4) per berry, 2 larger and apical (1 - 1.5 mm in diameter), the other 2 equatorial, smaller, 0.5 - 0.6 mm in diameter. Chromosome number: 2 n = 2 x = 24 (Moscone 1992; Moyetta et al. 2013).