tropical soda-apple (Invasive Plants of Maryland)

tropical soda-apple

Solanum viarum

Summary ⁹

Solanum viarum, the tropical soda apple, is a perennial shrub native to Brazil and Argentina with a prickly stem and prickly leaves. The fruit is golf-ball-sized with the coloration of a watermelon. It is considered an invasive species in the lower eastern coastal states of the United States and recently on the Mid North Coast of Australia. Seen in the Southern Peninsula area of Cape Town as of 1 November 2014.

Description ¹⁰

Herbs or subshrubs, erect, 0.5-1(-2) m tall, armed, minutely tomentose with many-celled, simple, mostly glandular hairs. Stems and branches terete, densely and evenly pubescent with many-celled, simple hairs to 1 mm, armed with recurved prickles 2-5 × 1-5(-8) mm and sometimes with needlelike prickles 1-4 mm. Leaves unequal paired; petiole stout 3-7 cm, armed with erect, flat straight prickles 0.3-1.8 cm; leaf blade broadly ovate, 6-13 × 6-12 cm, with prickles and coarse, many-celled, glandular simple hairs on both surfaces, these mixed with sparse, sessile, stellate hairs abaxially, base truncate to short hastate, margin 3-5-lobed or -parted; lobes blunt at apex. Inflorescences extra-axillary, subfasciculate, 1-5-flowered racemes; peduncle obsolete or short. Flowers andromonoecious, only basal ones fertile. Pedicel 4-6 mm. Calyx campanulate, ca. 10 × 7 mm, lobes oblong-lanceolate, 0.6-1.2 mm, hairy and sometimes prickly abaxially. Corolla white or green; lobes lanceolate, ca. 2.5 × 10 mm, pubescent as on calyx. Filaments 1-1.5 mm; anthers lanceolate, acuminate, 6-7 mm. Ovary puberulent. Style ca. 8 mm, glabrous. Berry pale yellow, globose, 2-3 cm in diam. Seeds brown, lenticular, 2-2.8 mm in diam. Fl. Jun-Aug, fr. Jun-Oct.

U.s. federal legal status ¹¹

Noxious weed [94]

Sources and Credits

(c) J. Jeffrey Mullahey, University of Florida, Bugwood.org, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solanum_viarum_fruit.jpg
(c) Linda Jo Conn, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Linda Jo Conn
(c) Joshua Doby, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Joshua Doby
(c) kerrypad, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by kerrypad
(c) Jessica, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Jessica
(c) Joe MDO, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Joe MDO
(c) sandy bauerschmidt, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by sandy bauerschmidt
(c) Tom Palmer, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Tom Palmer
Adapted by Kate Wagner from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanum_viarum
(c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/4986783
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24088005

More Info

iNat Map

Special status	Federal noxious weed

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