Solanum hindsianum
Near Catavina, BCN
Mar 1991 (left), Feb 1978 (right)

Solanum elaeagnifolium

Solanum umbelliferum

San Diego Co., Valley Center, CA
Apr 2007

Solanum umbelliferum

Kern Co., Bitter Creek Reserve, CA
30 Mar 2010
 

Solanum xanti

CA. Kern Co., California:  Northern slopes of Piute Mt. in valley of burned Piute cypress grove, 35.54987, -118.47822 (WGS84), elev. 5,300 ft, CNPS Chapter field trip June 1, 2013. Also observed and photographed at junction of Bodfish-Lake Isabella Rd at 3,800 ft.

Trees and Shrubs of Kern County (Feb 2013, Jan 2014)

Key to Solanum

1.      Flowers white; fruit glandoid by an enlarged green calyx, larger than the
pericarpium, the lobes spreading, star-shaped, berry (pericarpium)
black................................................................................... Solanum physalifolium

1.      Flowers blue to lavender or white; calyx if persistent not enlarged,
smaller than pericarpium; berry white or green......................................................... 2

2.      Plants mostly green, or if whitish green hairs forming a felt-like covering
on stems; berries turning white, black or purple; west of Sierra Nevada
in Kern Co......................................................................... Solanum umbelliferum

3.      Plants whitish green due to white spreading hairs on stems and leaves;
berries remaining green; Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi Mts., Piute Mts.................................................................................................. Solanum xanti

     Solanum. A large ± cosmopolitan genus of > 1,500 species of annual, perennial or subshrubs, unarmed to prickly; leaves simple to pinnately divided, mostly alternate, flowers axillary; calyx 5-lobed, anthers dehiscing by terminal pores; fruit typically a berry, sometimes dry and enclosed by a persistent calyx in which the pericarpium is irregularly dehiscent (foraminicidal capsule).  Includes economically important species  such as the potato, egg plant, and many poisonous species; 11 species cited in Moerman for use by native American Indians in medicine; 22 active in the NCI antitumor screening program prior to 1980; S. elaeagnifolium, which is an invasive in Bakersfield, had been of interest for its active antitumor alkaloids, also reported to have insecticidal activity.

*Solanum physalifolium Rusby 1896 var. nitidibaccatum (Solanum nitibaccatum Bitter 1912) Edmonds 1986. Hoe nightshade. Generally an annual with shallowly lobed to toothed leaf margins and baccate pericarpium subtended by an enlarged rotate green calyx.  A South American species naturalized at scattered locations in California and elsewhere.  Kern Co. Farnsworth Ranch, 2 miles southwest of Glennville; 0.7 miles southeast of Kernville along the Weldon Hwy (CCH). Decoction of fruit taken for diarrhea (Moerman).

Solanum umbelliferum Eschscholtz 1826 [includes S. californicum Dunal 1852; S. umbelliferum var. incanum Torrey 1855].  Blue witch.  Subshrub, stems largely herbaceous, usually with simple and branched non-glandular hairs; leaves elliptic to wider below the mid region, entire or lobed near base, 1.5– cm; fruit white with some green near base, with persistent slightly enlarged calyx, the lobes generally acute, nearly equal to shorter than  calyx tube. Mostly chaparral Central and South Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, to Arizona and Baja California.  Type from California. Kern Co.: “Occasional in the woody Upper Sonoran associations from the Temblor Range south to the san Emigdio Range” (Twisselmann), (122-) 800–1,400 m (-2,043) m. CCH includes a specimen that reported the species as a weed in lawn at the Doubletree Inn.

Solanum xanti A. Gray 1876 [includes S. xanti var. intermedium Parish 1901; S. xanti var. montanum Munz 1932]. Nightshade.  Differs slightly from the preceding in the simple often glandular hairs and green fruit. A widely distributed species in California outside the desert and the Great Valley. Type from Ft. Tejon, CA.  Kern Co.: “Occasional in colonies that overlap the range of the other varieties, occurring in the Douglas oak woodland from Castaic Valley to Cuddy Canyon in the Mt. Pinos region, at Purdy Ridge and Tehachapi Mountain Park in the Tehachapi Mountains, and at the summit of Tweedy Creek and on Sweet-water Ridge in the mountains at the head of Caliente Canyon.  It is the common form in the Jeffrey pine and lodgepole forest of the Kern Plateau in Kern and Tulare counties” (Twisselmann, var. intermedium Parish, a “glandular variety” ), 623–2,317 m. A “herbaceous form” has been distinguished as var. montanum (Twisselmann). Plant heated and applied as  poultice to sores, swollen leg and shoulder (Moerman).

Pharmaceutical References

Kim Y. C., Q. M. Che, A. A. Gunatilaka and D. G. Kingston.  1996.  Bioactive steroidal alkaloids from Solanum umbelliferum.  J Nat Prod. 59: 283–285.  “Bioassay-directed fractionation of the MeOH extract of Solanum umbelliferum afforded solasodine (1), O-acetylsolasodine (2), and solasodine 3-O-beta-D- glucopyranoside (3). Alkaloids 1 and 2 exhibited significant activity toward DNA repair-deficient yeast mutants, whereas 3 and the synthetic analogues N-acetylsolasodine (4) and N,O-diacetylsolasodine (5) were found to be inactive. Compounds 2 and 3 are new natural products.”