Hinds’s or Baja or Sonoran nightshade

Shrubs, erect, unarmed to sparsely armed, 0.5–3 m, prickles reddish brown, straight, 2–15 mm, densely silvery-pubes­cent, hairs sessile to short-stalked, stellate, 8–12-rayed, central ray shorter than or equal to lateral rays. Leaves petiolate; petioles 0.5–1.5 cm; blade sim­ple, ovate to elliptic, (1–)2–6.5 × (0.5–)1–3(–4.5) cm, margins entire or undulate, base rounded to truncate and usually oblique. Inflorescences extra-axillary, unbranched, 3–4-flowered, 3–4 cm. Pedicels 0.4–1.5 cm in flower, erect and 1–2 cm in fruit. Flowers radi­ally symmetric; calyx not accrescent, unarmed, 8–10(–20) mm, densely stellate-pubescent, lobes long-triangular to linear-lanceolate; corolla violet, pentagonal, 2.5–4(–5) cm diam., with abundant interpetalar tissue; stamens equal or slightly unequal; anthers narrow and tapered, 6–10 mm, dehiscent by terminal pores; ovary glabrous. Berries light green, sometimes with darker mottling, drying dark brown or reddish brown, globose, 1–1.5(–2) cm diam., glabrous, cracking open to expose seeds, without sclerotic granules. Seeds dark brown, flattened, 2–3 mm diam., minutely pitted.

Flowering Jan–Mar. Rocky soils, hillsides; 500–600 m; Ariz.; Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora).

Solanum hindsianum is endemic to the Sonoran Desert of extreme southern Arizona and northern Mexico. In Arizona, it is known only from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.