FoI
Long-Teeth Nightshade
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Long-Teeth Nightshade
P Native Photo: M. Sawmliana
Common name: Long-Teeth Nightshade • Mizo: Vani-an-chi-khat
Botanical name: Lycianthes macrodon    Family: Solanaceae (Potato family)
Synonyms: Lycianthes biflora subsp. macrodon, Solanum macrodon

Long-Teeth Nightshade is a shrub to subshrub about 1 m tall; young branchlets with erect, simple hairs, mostly becoming hairless, sometimes with persistent, scattered branched hairs. Leaves are unequal paired; leaf-stalk 0.5-2 cm; blade of major leaf lanceshaped to elliptic-lanceshaped, 5-9 x 3-4 cm, with sparse many-celled hairs above, base decurrent, tip pointed or tapering; blade of minor leaf ovate, 2-4 x 1-1.5 cm. Inflorescences 1-3-flowered fascicles in leaf axils. Flower-stalks are 1-1.5 cm. Sepal-cup is cup-shaped to bell-shaped, 6-7 mm; teeth 10, subulate, slightly unequal, 4-4.5 mm. Flower are white, star-shaped, about 1 cm; petals lanceshaped, 8-11 x 2-3 mm, with green basal spots, fringed with hairs. Filaments are about 0.3 mm; anthers oblong, 3-3.5 mm. Style 8-10 mm. Fruiting flower-stalks are 5-12 mm, velvet-hairy with many-celled hairs. Fruiting sepal-cup teeth are 5-5.5 mm. Berries are red, nearly spherical, 0.8-1 cm in diameter, seeds triangular-kidney-shaped, about 1.2 mm. Long-Teeth Nightshade is found in Eastern Himalayas, from Nepal to Bhutan and NE India and China, at altitudes of 1500-2300 m. Flowering: June-September.

Identification credit: J.M. Garg Photographed in Sairep, Mizoram.

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