The black nightshades (Solanum section Solanum) of the Indian subcontinent
01 Mar 1990-Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society (Blackwell Publishing Ltd)-Vol. 102, Iss: 3, pp 253-259
TL;DR: None of the members of section Solanum appears to be a weed of significant agronomic importance in this area, except in a few localized areas.
About: This article is published in Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.The article was published on 1990-03-01. It has received 25 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Solanum villosum & Solanum.
Citations
More filters
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Several glycoalkaloids and their aglycones were analysed that were shown to be a valuable tool to resolve the international taxonomic controversy based on morphological characters and demonstrated significant distances among S. nigrum complex.
Abstract: The comparison of alkaloidal profile of delimited species in the 5 locally available taxa of S. nigrum complex were used to establish the boundaries among close taxonomic groups. Several glycoalkaloids (Solasonine, α-Solamargine, β-Solamargine and α-Solanine) and their aglycones (Solasodine and Solanidine) were analysed that were shown to be a valuable tool to resolve the international taxonomic controversy based on morphological characters. HPLC and GC-MS were used for the first time for the analysis of alkaloids in S. nigrum complex. Qualitative and quantitative comparison by cluster analysis demonstrated significant distances among S. chenopodioides and S. villosum as well as in S. americanum and S. nigrum, in their respective clusters, indicated them as distinct species. But S. retroflexum did not show such a marked difference and hence might be regarded as a variety or subspecies of S. nigrum.
53 citations
TL;DR: This is the first taxonomic overview since the 19th century of the entire group in the Old World, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and islands of the Pacific, with complete synonymy, morphological descriptions, distribution maps and common names and uses for all 19 species occurring outside the Americas.
Abstract: The Morelloid clade, also known as the black nightshades or "Maurella" (Morella), is one of the 10 major clades within Solanum L The pantropical clade consists of 75 currently recognised non-spiny herbaceous and suffrutescent species with simple or branched hairs with or without glandular tips, with a centre of distribution in the tropical Andes A secondary centre of diversity is found in Africa, where a set of mainly polyploid taxa occur A yet smaller set of species is found in Australasia and Europe, including Solanum nigrum L, the type of the genus Solanum Due to the large number of published synonyms, combined with complex morphological variation, our understanding of species limits and diversity in the Morelloid clade has remained poor despite detailed morphological studies carried out in conjunction with breeding experiments Here we provide the first taxonomic overview since the 19th century of the entire group in the Old World, including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and islands of the Pacific Complete synonymy, morphological descriptions, distribution maps and common names and uses are provided for all 19 species occurring outside the Americas (ie Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and islands of the Pacific) We treat 12 species native to the Old World, as well as 7 taxa that are putatively introduced and/or invasive in the region The current knowledge of the origin of the polyploid species is summarised A key to all of the species occurring in the Old World is provided, together with line drawings and colour figures to aid identification both in herbaria and in the field Preliminary conservation assessments are provided for all species
46 citations
Cites background from "The black nightshades (Solanum sect..."
...…(Henderson 1974), Africa (Edmonds and Chweya 1997; Olet 2004; Manoko 2007; Edmonds 2012), Europe (Wessely 1960) and the Indian subcontinent (Schilling and Andersen 1990) and detailed cytological, molecular and morphological studies (Saarisalo-Taubert 1967; Venkateswarlu and Rao 1972;…...
[...]
...In Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, S. nigrum is also used as a leaf vegetable (Arora 1981; Jain and Borthakur 1986), for its fruits (Abraham 1981; Vartak 1981) and in medicine (Ammaan and Subramanian 2017)....
[...]
...Solanum “nigrum” has a long history of use in Ayurvedic medicine in India, but it is clear that the concept medicinally does not distinguish between S. nigrum s.s. and S. villosum (see Warrier et al. 1996; Jagatheeswari et al. 2013; Ved et al. 2016)....
[...]
...On the Indian subcontinent (Singh et al. 2001), tests of leaf extracts of S. nigrum have shown promise as larvicides against mosquitoes that are important vectors of human disease such as the malaria vector Anopheles culicifecies Giles and the filariasis vectors Culex quinquefasciatus Say and Aedes aegypti (Linnaeus in Hasselquist)....
[...]
...Schilling and Andersen (1990) suggested there may be an environmental effect on berry colour in S. villosum; accessions labelled as having yellow or orange berries in the field in India all had orange berries in cultivation....
[...]
TL;DR: Most of the section Solanum species were distinguishable and easily identified, but the exception was S. florulentum and S. tarderemotum which were identified tentatively and assigned respective names, but are difficult to differentiate and require further studies.
Abstract: African nightshades play an important role in meeting the nutritional needs of rural households, and are reported as being particularly rich in protein, vitamin A, iron and calcium. Nightshades are among three top priority African indigenous vegetables identified for improvement and promotion through research. A major constraint facing this objective is the scantiness of taxonomic and nomenclatural knowledge on African nightshades resulting in extensive synonymy and confusion. As a consequence, the toxic species are difficult to discriminate from those with high nutritional value. It is also difficult to identify species with good agronomic traits for genetic enhancement. This study was conducted to identify, characterize, and delimit African nightshade species. Fifty accessions of Solanum section Solanum from eastern, southern and western Africa were raised in a greenhouse at the Botanical and Experimental Garden, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. A descriptor list with 48 vegetative and reproductive characters was developed and used to characterize flowering and fruiting plants. Counting of chromosome was done on root squash preparations from one weekold seedlings, aided by digital enhancement of microscopic images. Nine species were represented in the study material, including two diploids: Solanum americanum , and Solanum chenopodioides ; five tetraploids: Solanum retroflexum , Solanum villosum , Solanum florulentum , Solanum grossidentatum and Solanum tarderemotum ; and two hexaploids: Solanum nigrum and Solanum scabrum . Most of the section Solanum species were distinguishable and easily identified. The exception was S. florulentum and S. tarderemotum which were identified tentatively and assigned respective names, but are difficult to differentiate and require further studies. The S. florulentum/tarderemotum group has three distinguishable variants and further studies are needed to determine the taxonomic status of each as a separate species, subspecies or genotypic/phenotypic variants. Furthermore, S. retroflexum, S. villosum and S. scabrum each had a high degree of within-species variation, and further studies are recommended to determine whether the variations within each constitute subspecies. Key words: Solanum sp ., Identification, Characterization
45 citations
Cites background from "The black nightshades (Solanum sect..."
...Much of this complexity has been resolved for Europe, Asia, the Americas and Australia, leaving Africa and South-East Asia as the two major geographic regions where a comprehensive taxonomic treatment of the section is lacking [6, 8, 12, 14, 15]....
[...]
...Nightshades taxonomy has long been beleaguered by complexity, resulting in extensive synonymy and confusion [6, 13]....
[...]
...Although nightshades are historically considered inedible poisonous plants or troublesome agronomic weeds in Europe and the Americas [6-8], their status is completely different in western, eastern and southern Africa as well as in India, Indonesia and China, where they have for long been used as leafy herbs and vegetables, as a source of fruits and dye, and for various medicinal uses [7-9]....
[...]
TL;DR: The overall karyotypic features suggested S. villosum as an ancient auto-tetraploid of S. americanum which in course of time has started regular meiosis.
Abstract: Two species of the genus Solanum viz. S. nigrum and S. villosum found in Bangladesh were cytogenetically investigated to confirm their taxonomic status. S. nigrum and S. villosum were found to possess 2n=24 and 2n=48 chromosomes, respectively. The centromeric formula 22m+2sm was found in S. nigrum and 48m in S. villosum. No gradual decrease of chromosomal length was observed in both the species indicated their karyotypes as primitive type. The individual chromosomal length ranged from 1.66 to 2.34 μm in S. nigrum and 1.66 to 2.66 μm in S. villosum. The total chromatin length in S. villosum (97.8 μm) was almost double to that of S. nigrum (48.94 μm). The range of relative length of chromosomes was similar in these two species. Solanum nigrum and S. villosum possessed 18 and 17 CMA positive bands, respectively. Most of the CMA-bands were present at the terminal region in both the species. The percentage of CMA banded region in S. villosum (35.43) was almost double to that of S. nigrum (18.69). A pair of DAPI positive bands was found on both the end of all the chromosomes in these 2 species. Each band was 0.5 μm in length. The karyotype of S. nigrum studied here indicated that the specimen was not actually S. nigrum rather it has much simillarities with S. americanum. Solanum villosum showed regular bivalent formation at metaphase-I and segregation at anaphase-I. The overall karyotypic features suggested S. villosum as an ancient auto-tetraploid of S. americanum which in course of time has started regular meiosis.
33 citations
TL;DR: Essential oils from leaves and berries of Solanum sarrachoides and their monoterpene constituents play a role in regulating oviposition in T. evansi and compared favorably with the two positive controls.
25 citations
Additional excerpts
...Morella (Dunal) Bitter, is comprised of 30 or so weedy and cosmopolitan species (Schilling and Andersen, 1990) usually grouped together in the ‘Solanum nigrum’ complex....
[...]
References
More filters
TL;DR: In this article, the authors combined taxonomic treatments and comparisons of accessions from numerous locations grown in the field and greenhouse to produce a key and descriptions of common agricultural nightshades in North America (Solanum americanum Mill, S. nigrum L., S. ptycanthum Dun., and S. sarrachoides Sendt.).
Abstract: Information from taxonomic treatments and comparisons of accessions from numerous locations grown in the field and greenhouse were combined and summarized to produce a key and descriptions of common agricultural nightshades in North America (Solanum americanum Mill., S. nigrum L., S. ptycanthum Dun., and S. sarrachoides Sendt.). Quantitative and qualitative descriptions of key characters and photographs of important morphological structures are provided to facilitate field identification. Problems with nomenclature among these species are discussed, and a system of common names that would standardize usage is proposed.
58 citations
TL;DR: This synopsis of the taxonomy of Solanum L. Edmonds recognises 14 species in South America, with additional infra-specific taxa, and two new combinations have been made, S. lorentzii (Bitt.) Edmonds and S. itatiaiae Glazion ex Edmonds.
Abstract: This synopsis of the taxonomy of Solanum L. Section Solanum recognises 14 species in South America, with additional infra-specific taxa. Two new combinations have been made, S. polytrichostylum Bitt. var. lorentzii (Bitt.) Edmonds and S. pentlandii Dun. subsp. interandinum (Bitt.) Edmonds and S. itatiaiae Glazion ex Edmonds is given valid publication. Methods used in delimiting the taxa are briefly described, a key to the species is given, and their areas of distribution, chromosome numbers and the more important synonyms are listed.
51 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In the large genus Solanum, perhaps the most widespread species-group is that contained in the section Morella^ and centering about SolAnum nigrum L., often known as "deadly nightshade," which consists of weedy perennials or annuals, many of which have become adventive in regions far from their original habitats.
Abstract: In the large genus Solanum, perhaps the most widespread species-group is that contained in the section Morella^ and centering about Solanum nigrum L., often known as "deadly nightshade." It consists of weedy perennials or annuals, many of which have become adventive in regions far from their original habitats. In addition, practically every continent and floral region has its indigenous members of the complex. These facts, as well as the great variability of the species, combine to make the group very difficult taxonomically. Many of the more conservative botanists, such as Gray (1886, p. 227) recognize only one species in the entire complex. On the other hand Dunal (1852, pp. 28-387), in his monographic treatment of the genus has recognized no less less than 53 species in this section. An even larger number has been recognized by Bitter (1912, 1913) in his several publications on the genus. Various members of the complex have from time to time been subjected to cytogenetic analysis. Jorgenson (1928) dealt primarily with the European species, true S. nigrum L. and "S. luteum" (= S. mllosum Lam.). He showed that these two species have different chromosome numbers, 2n = 72 and 2n = 48 respectively, and can be hybridized only with the greatest of difficulty. Nakamura (1937) found that the plants growing in Japan and classified as S. nigrum actually comprise two distinct species, the typical S . nigrum with 72 chromosomes and a diploid with 24 chromosomes, which he named S. photeinocarpum Nakamura. Cytological studies by other authors (Tokunaga 1934, Ellison 1936) have confirmed the existence of several different chromosome numbers within the complex. Our attention was called to this complex by two observations. In the first place, the senior author noticed that the small-flowered straggling perennial which passes as S. nigrum in California looked obviously different from the larger flowered, thin-leaved annual which he had previously recognized by that name in the eastern United States. A count of its chromosomes showed that it was a diploid, with 2n = 24 chromosomes. In the second place, the junior author continued an exploration of the complex, only to find that two different chromosome numbers exist among the plants passing as S. Douglasii Dunal. Plants from the San Francisco peninsula were hexaploids with 2n = 72 chromosomes, while those from Monterey, the type locality for the species, and
49 citations