Lycianthes rantonnetii ( Carriere ) Bitter, Abh. Naturwiss. Verein Bremen 24 [preprint]: 332. 1919

Dean, Ellen, Poore, Jennifer, Anguiano-Constante, Marco Antonio, Nee, Michael H., Kang, Hannah, Starbuck, Thomas, Rodrigues, Annamarie & Conner, Matthew, 2020, The genus Lycianthes (Solanaceae, Capsiceae) in Mexico and Guatemala, PhytoKeys 168, pp. 1-333 : 1

40 Lycianthes rantonnetii ( Carriere) Bitter, Abh. Naturwiss. Verein Bremen 24 [preprint]: 332. 1919 Fig. 90

Solanum rantonnetii Carrière, Rev. Hort. [Paris] 32: 135. 1859, as rantonnei . Type: Illustration (Rev. Hort. [Paris] 32: fig. 32, page 135 (lectotype designated here). Orthographic variant correcting epithet to " rantonnetii " published by Lescuyer, Hort. Français, sér. II. i (9): 197. Late 1859 or 1860.

Solanum corniculatum Hiern, Vidensk. Meddel. Naturhist. Foren. Kjøbenhavn (1877-78): 45. 1877. Type: Brazil, Río de Janeiro, 1867. A. Glaziou 1078 (lectotype designated here: C [10019192]; isolectotypes: BR [00000552267, 00000552234]).

Solanum urbanum Morong, Ann. New York Acad. Sci. 7: 177. 1893. Type: Paraguay. Asunción, streets of Asunción, Nov 1888, T. Morong 147 (lectotype designated by Barboza 2013, pg. 29: NY [00172225]; isolectotypes: MO [acc. # 2495263], NDG [NDG45160], PH [00030498], US [00027839], WIS [v0004256WIS]).

Solanum muticum N.E.Br., Bull. Misc. Inform. Kew 85: 6. 1894. Type: Uruguay. Montevideo "Originaire du Paraguay, cultivé à Montevideo comme plante d’ornament,” Mar 1858, Gibert 56 (lectotype designated by Barboza 2013, pg. 29: K [K000585755]).

Solanum urbanum Morong var. foliosum Chodat, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genève, ser. 2, 8: 152, fig. 47. 1916. Type: Paraguay. Cerros de Paraguarí, R. Chodat & W. Vischer 60 (holotype: G [G00392293]).

Solanum urbanum Morong var. nervosum Chodat, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genève, ser. 2, 8: 152, fig. 47. 1916. Type: Paraguay. No exact location, Jan 1900, É. Hassler 7024 (lectotype designated here: G [G00390048]; isolectotypes: G [G00392288, G00392285, G00392290], P [P03852955], W [acc. # 1904-804].

Solanum urbanum Morong var. subtomentosum Chodat, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genève, ser. 2, 8: 152, fig. 47. 1916. Type: Paraguay. Misiones: San Ignacio, Oct 1914, R. Chodat & W. Vischer 61 (holotype: G [G00392295]).

Solanum urbanum Morong var. typicum Chodat, Bull. Soc. Bot. Genève, ser. 2, 8: 151. 1916. Nom. illeg. Type: Paraguay. Dans les jardines de l’Assumption, 9 Apr 1875, B. Balansa 2104 (lectotype designated here: G [G00392296]; isolectotype: G [G00392297]).

Type.

Based on Solanum rantonnetii Carrière

Description.

Shrub, 1-3 (4) m tall, multiple stems emerging at the soil level. Indument of whitish, multicellular, simple, furcate, or dendritically branched, eglandular, spreading trichomes to 0.5 mm long, as well as sparse simple, glandular hairs. Stems green with yellow striations when young, sparsely to moderately pubescent, not compressed, but sometimes angled, upon drying in a plant press, brown and woody with angled ridges with age, becoming glabrate; upper sympodial branching usually dichasial, sometimes monochasial. Leaves simple, the leaves of the upper sympodia usually unpaired, when paired often equal in size, the blades 1-15.5 × 0.5-7.5 cm, widely ovate, elliptic, rhombic-lanceolate, or narrowly lanceolate, chartaceous, moderately pubescent, the base cuneate, attenuate into the petiole, sometimes oblique, the margin entire, irregularly undulate, the apex acute or acuminate (sometimes obtuse at the very tip), the petiole (0.1-) 0.8-2.5 (-4) cm long, winged toward the apex, the larger leaf blades with 3-7 primary veins on each side of the midvein. Flowers solitary or in groups of 2-7, axillary, erect to ascending; peduncles absent; pedicels slender, 5-25 mm long and erect to arching in flower, to 25 mm long (probably longer), arching to deflexed fruit, moderately pubescent; calyx 1.5-4 mm long, 2.5-4.5 mm in diameter, obconic to campanulate, puberulent, the margin truncate, with 5-10 spreading, linear-subulate appendages of two different lengths, the five longer appendages 2-5.2 mm long, emerging at the calyx rim, the five shorter appendages 0.25-2 mm long (these sometimes lacking), emerging ca. 0.25 mm below the calyx rim; fruiting calyx slightly enlarged, widely bowl- or plate-shaped, 3-5 mm long, 9-11 mm in diameter, the appendages not elongating, often withering; corolla 1-1.2 (2) cm long, rotate in orientation, mostly entire in outline (with shallow notches), with abundant interpetalar tissue, adaxially deep violet-purple with yellow center, glabrous, abaxially deep violet-purple, glabrous; stamens unequal, curved, the two short filaments 0.8-1.5 mm long, the three long filaments 2-3 mm long, sparsely to densely pubescent on inner face at juncture with corolla, the anthers 2.5-4 mm long, elliptic to oblong, free of one another, yellow to orange, glabrous, poricidal at the tips, the pores opening horizontally, dehiscing toward the style, not opening into longitudinal slits; pistil with glabrous ovary, the style 3.5-5.5 mm long, linear, slightly curved, widening near the stigma, glabrous, the stigma truncate, slightly bilobed. Fruit a berry, 10-20 (35) mm long, 8-15 (35) mm in diameter, subglobose to ellipsoid, green (sometimes with dark lines when immature), yellow to orange when mature, glabrous, with abundant (often more than 20) tan, irregularly shaped sclerotic granules, 1-2 (3) mm long, these sometimes attached to the seeds. Seeds ca. 3-12 per fruit in horticultural plants, possibly more in native habitat, (1.75) 2.25-3.5 × (1.5) 3-3.3 mm, compressed but not flat, round elliptic to reniform in outline, dark brown, the surface reticulum with loose serpentine pattern with deep luminae.

Chromosome number.

2n = 24, Gerasimenko and Reznikova 1968, cited in D’Arcy (1974). Acosta et al. (2005).

Distribution and habitat.

Native to South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and southern Brazil) in thickets and woodlands, weedy in disturbed areas along roadsides, 100-2000 m in elevation. Horticulturally, widely distributed worldwide, including Mexico and Guatemala (no distribution map completed for this species).

Common names and uses.

Argentina. Meloncillo del aire ( Barboza and Hunziker 1992).

Phenology.

This species flowers most of the year in cultivation and may be similar in its native habitat. Fruiting period not known. Corollas open in the morning, closing by late afternoon or evening.

Preliminary conservation status.

As this species is a horticultural plant in our floristic region, we are not providing a conservation assessment.

Discussion.

Lycianthes rantonnetii is a popular horticultural plant, often flowering prolifically throughout the year (depending on climate) and dying back to near the ground in cold temperatures. The species is widely planted in Mexico and California. Viable seeds are produced in Mexican plants, but in California, the fruits are often sterile, without viable seeds; it has been documented as persisting in the wild in southern California, but it is unknown whether viable seeds are being produced ( Dean in press). The species was named for M. Victor Rantonnet, 19th century French horticulturist of Hyères, a town on the Mediterranean coast of southern France ( Carrière 1859). The spelling of the epithet was first published as " rantonnei " in March of 1859 ( Carrière 1859) and changed to rantonnetii by Lescuyer in the later months of 1859 ( D’Arcy 1974). Retaining the spelling as L. rantonnetii was upheld by recent editors of the International Plants Name Index citing Art. 60.7 of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature ( Shaw and Shaw 2004).

In the protologue, Carrière (1859) described Solanum rantonnetii from horticultural material grown in Hyères. He says that the seeds were brought to France in ca. 1849 by a naval officer from the region of La Plata [assumed to be Argentina], and after being grown at Toulon, plants were then shared with Rantonnet. No herbarium specimens were cited by Carrière, but the protologue does have a detailed illustration ( Carrière 1859, fig. 32, pg. 135) which can serve as a type, and we are lectotypifying that illustration here.

The protologue for Solanum corniculatum is part of an article edited by Warming but published by Hiern (a British botanist) on the Solanaceae of Brazil ( Hiern 1877). The protologue cites one collection (Glazou 1078) but does not mention where the collection was seen or deposited. We located one duplicate of Glazou 1078 at C [10019192] and two at BR [00000552267, 00000552234]. The specimen at C is from the Warming Herbarium. Those at BR are from the Martius herbarium. Therefore, the duplicate from the Warming Herbarium at C was chosen as the lectotype: C [10019192].

In his protologue for Solanum urbanum Morong var. nervosum , Chodat and Vischer (1916) cite three collections from Paraguay which we located at G: É. Hassler 7024 [G00390048, G00392288, G00392285, G00392290], B. Balansa 2121 [G00390049], and É. Hassler 6728 [G00392289]. From these specimens we chose a duplicate of É. Hassler 7024 [G00390048] as the lectotype.

In his protologue for Solanum urbanum Morong var. typicum , Chodat and Vischer (1916) cite one collection from Paraguay at G: B. Balansa 2104. We located two duplicate syntypes of the collection at G [G00392296, G00392297]. From these we chose G00392296 as the lectotype.

Figures

Figure 90. Image of herbarium specimen of L. rantonnetii, McCaskill 612 (DAV). Image used with permission of the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity.