Solanum chilense

Solanum chilense

Solanum chilense (syn. Lycopersicon chilense ) is a species of the section of the tomato (Lycopersicon ) in the genus of the nightshade (Solanum ).

Description

Vegetative characteristics

Solanum chilense is a robust, perennial, herbaceous plant that initially erect, later lying grows. It is up to 1 m high, reaching a diameter of up to one meter also, but can occasionally spread further especially on rocky sites. The grayish woody stem at the base and reach a diameter of 8 to 12 mm. The dense, velvety coat consists of white, single-row, nichtdrüsigen trichomes up to 0.5 mm length and sporadic short uniseriate glandular trichomes with four or eight cell heads.

The sympodial units have two (rarely three) leaves, the internodes are 1-2 (rarely to 5) cm long. The leaves are pinnate interrupted unpaired, ( rarely 5 to ) 7 to 13 (rarely to 20) cm long and ( rarely 2) 2.5 to 6.5 (rarely to 10) cm wide. They are greyish green. The hair is similar to the stem axis, but with less glandular trichomes.

The paper consists of five to seven pairs of main part of leaves, which are narrow elliptically shaped, have a broad -pointed to pointed tip and an oblique, running down to the Teilblattstielchen basis so that they appear sessile. Between the top and bottom of leaves, no significant difference in size, reaching a length of 1.2 to 3.5 cm and a width of 0.5 to 1.3 cm. The front partial blade is longer and narrower than the side in a ratio, and then 2 to 4 cm long and 0.7 to 2.5 cm wide. Leaves part of the second order are often faced to the largest side of leaves and are 0.2 to 0.4 cm long and 0.05 to 0.2 cm wide. Your base runs down to the sub- petioles. Between the main body of sheets in two pairs are usually about 10 to 20 inserted leaflets, they are 0.2 to 0.5 cm long and 0.1 to 0.3 cm wide. Pseudo- stipules are at most nodes pronounced and 0.5 to 0.9 cm long and 0.4 to 1.2 cm wide.

Inflorescences and flowers

The inflorescences consist of (rarely only twelve) 20 to 50 flowers, reaching a length of 6 to 20 ( rarely to 30) cm. They are usually once forked, occasionally occur towards the tip further bifurcations. Bracts may be missing or be present at almost every node, then they reach a length of 0.5 to 1.2 cm and a width of 0.2 to 0.5 cm; its edge is notched irregularly. The inflorescences are from 4 to 15 cm long inflorescence stems. They are similar to hairy stems and leaves. The flower stems are 1 to 1.6 cm long and bent articulated in the upper half.

The buds have a length of 9 to 12 cm and 3-4 cm wide. They have a tapered, straight shape. Before opening the bud the petals are already out a little more than half over the chalice. In its heyday, the calyx tube is about 0.5 to 1 mm long and 5 to 6 mm long and 1-2 mm wide, lanceolate, on both sides densely white velvety hairy calyx lobes occupied. The wheel-shaped, star-shaped crown reached a diameter of 2 to 2.6 cm. It is colored bright yellow, which means each Kronlappens veins are darker in color. The corolla tube has a length of 0.4 to 0.5, (rarely to 0.7 ) cm, the Kronlappen reach a length of 1 to 1.2 cm and a width of 0.5 to 0.6 (rarely up 0 7 ) cm. The outside is sparsely filled with simple, up to 0.25 mm long trichomes, which are closer to the central veins, edges and tips.

The stamens are fused into a straight tube with a length from 0.9 to 1.3 cm, while the stamens reach a length of less than 0.5 cm, the anthers 0.5 to 0.8 cm long, which located at the tip of sterile appendix is 0.15 to 0.2 cm long. The ovary is spherical, glabrous or hairy finely pubescent only at the top. The pen is 1 to 1.4 mm in length, and measures 0.5 mm in diameter. In the bottom half of it is densely white - hairy, he is about 1.5 to 2 cm above the stamen tube and carries a kopfige, green colored scar.

Fruit and seeds

The fruit is a 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter, spherical berry. It is divided into two to five chambers and maturity greenish white with purple stripes along the chamber boundaries colored. It is sparsely to moderately hairy with 0.5 to 0.7 mm long, simple white trichomes; occasionally the trichomes have unicellular glandular heads. In between are occasionally short -row four-cell glandular trichomes with heads. The stem is 1.4 to 2.1 cm long and straight or slightly curved at the joint to fruit ripening. The calyx lobes enlarge in the fruit of 12 to 16 mm and have a width of 1.5 to 2 mm and include the fruit or are only slightly splayed.

The seeds are 2.2 to 3.2 mm long, 1.2 to 1.6 mm wide and 0.5 to 0.7 mm. They are obovate, dark brown and covered with hair-like outgrowths of the outer seed wall cells, so that the surface appears silky or shaggy. At the top they are narrow winged, pointed at the base.

Ecology

The flowers and fruits appear regularly distributed over the entire year, an increase in the number of flowers it there are between September and October.

Occurrences and locations

The species occurs on the western slopes of the Andes in front of Tacna in southern Peru to northern Chile. They grow there on extremely dry, rocky areas and in coastal deserts between sea level to up to 3000 m.