Solanum hovei - Konkan Bitterberry

Konkan Bitterberry is a subshrub to shrub, up to 1.5 m tall, armed. It has widely been confused with Indian Nightshade. Stems are erect, round, prickly, sparsely velvet-hairy; prickles up to 7 mm long, to 3.5 mm in diameter at the base, straight to slightly recurved, broad-based, laterally compressed, light orange to brown, hairless. Leaves are simple, shallowly lobed, the blades 5-21 cm long, 2-9 cm wide, about 2-3 times longer than wide, rhombic to nearly elliptic, papery, armed along the central and occasionally the lateral veins, the prickles up to 1 cm long. Upper surface is dark green, the stalks up to 0.2 mm, lower surface light green. Inflorescences are 0.4-4 cm long, extra-in leaf-axils, unbranched, with about 4-10 flowers, 1-3 flowers open at any one time, moderately to densely, unarmed. Flower-cluster-stalk about 0-1.3 cm long, unarmed; flower-stalks 5-9 mm long, about 0.5 mm in diameter at the base, about 1 mm in diameter at the tip, spreading at anthesis, unarmed or prickly with a few straight and broad-based prickles. Flowers are 5-merous, 1.2-1.5 cm in diameter, light blue or purple, pinwheel-shaped, lobed about halfway to the base, interpetalar tissue somewhat present, petals 4-5.5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, ovate, spreading at anthesis. Sepal-tube is 0.7-2.5 mm long, conical, sepals 0.5-1.6 mm long, 1.3-2 mm wide, broadly triangular, unarmed or very sparsely prickly, moderately to densely velvet-hairy below. Stamens are equal; anthers 4-5.5 mm long, 0.6-1.2 mm wide, orange or orangish yellow, connivent, hairless. Fruit is a nearly spherical berry, 1-5 per cluster, 0.6-1 cm in diameter, orange when ripe, the pericarp thin and shiny, hairless; fruiting flower-stalks 1-1.5 cm long, strongly deflexed; fruiting sepals not markedly enlarged, seeds 10-20 per berry. Konkan Bitterberry is found primarily along the Western Ghats, in the states of Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Flowering: August-October.