红茄 hong qie

Solanum integrifolium Poiret.

Herbs annual, ca. 70 cm tall, pubescent with stalked or sessile, 5-9-rayed stellate hairs. Stem and branches prickly; prickles 2-5 mm, 1-2 mm broad at base, straight or slightly curved. Upper leaves often unequal paired; petiole 2-7 cm; leaf blade ovate to oblong-ovate, 10-20 × 6-14 cm, with mixed simple and many-rayed hairs abaxially, stellate tomentose along veins and often with subulate prickles 3-7 mm, irregularly sinuate-parted, apex acuminate or obtuse. Inflorescences extra-axillary, few flowered, race-mose; peduncle 1-1.5 cm. Flowers 5-merous, (6-9-merous in cultivation). Pedicel 5-12 mm, with prickles 0.2-2 mm. Calyx campanulate; lobes slightly unequal, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 5-7 × 3-4 mm. Corolla white or slightly purplish, stellate or stellate-rotate, 1.5-2.5 cm in diam.; limb ca. 6.5 mm. Filaments 0.5-1 mm, glabrous; anthers lanceolate-elliptic, 4-5 × 0.7-1 mm, emarginate at apex and base. Ovary 4-8-locular. Style 5.7-7.5 mm. Berry orange or red, 1.5-3(-5) cm in diam., often longitudinally 4-6-grooved. Seeds reniform, 2-3.5 mm in diam.

400-1800 m. Cultivated in Henan (Song Xian) and Yunnan (Kunming Shi and Xishuangbanna) [Africa]

The fruits are used medicinally and for food in some countries.