Solanum antisuyo Särkinen & S. Knapp

Stout herb to a shrub up to 1.5 m tall, much branching at base, the individual branches up to 1m long. Stems 2-ridged or slightly winged especially towards base, 0.4–0.6 cm in diameter, purple-coloured especially at leaf nodes, nearly glabrous, sparsely pubescent with simple uniseriate, much reduced 1–3-celled trichomes especially on the often purple coloured young growth. Sympodial units difoliate, not geminate. Leaves simple, 2–17 cm long, 1.2–8.4 cm wide, broadly ovate-lanceolate, membranous to somewhat fleshy; adaxial and abaxial surfaces sparsely pubescent with more or less appressed 1–3-celled simple uniseriate trichomes 0.1–0.2 mm long; primary veins 7–10 pairs; base rounded, decurrent on the petiole; margins entire, often purple tinged; apex acute to acuminate; petiole 0.3–1.2 cm long, occasionally narrowly winged, sparsely pubescent with simple uniseriate trichomes like those of the stems and leaves. Inflorescences 1.4–4.0 cm long, lateral and internodal, simple or once-branched, with 5–14 flowers arising very close together, sparsely pubescent with appressed 1–2-celled simple uniseriate trichomes similar to those on stem and leaves; peduncle 1.0–3.3 cm long, if the inflorescence branched then the peduncle rachis 0.2–0.4 cm long, short and congested; pedicels 1.0–1.2 cm long, 0.5–0.6 mm in diameter at the base tapering gradually to 1.0–1.2 mm in diameter at apex, straight and spreading at anthesis, recurving and becoming woody in fruit, not dehiscing; pedicel scars spaced 0–2 mm apart. Buds conical-ellipsoid, cream-coloured, the corolla strongly exerted from the calyx tube before anthesis. Flowers 5-merous, all perfect; calyx tube 1.5–2.0 mm long, green, the lobes 0.7–0.9 mm long, broadly deltate with rounded apices, purple coloured, sparsely pubescent with 1-celled simple uniseriate trichomes; corolla 12–24 mm in diameter, stellate, white or rarely lilac with a yellow to yellow-green central star at the base, lobed slightly less than halfway to the base, the lobes ca. 9–15 mm long, 4–5 mm wide, spreading to reflexed at anthesis, pubescent abaxially with 1–3-celled simple uniseriate trichomes shorter than the trichomes of the stems and leaves, sparsely pubescent adaxially at base near the filaments with 5–7-celled simple uniseriate trichomes; filament tube ca. 2 mm long, adaxially pubescent with 5–7-celled simple uniseriate trichomes; free portion of the filaments ca. 2 mm long, sometimes slightly longer in two lowermost anthers at anthesis (elongating after anthesis?), pubescent like the tube; anthers ca. (2.8)3.0–3.4 mm long, 1 mm wide, ellipsoid, yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age; ovary cylindrical, pubescent 2/3 from the base with 2–3-celled simple uniseriate trichomes; style 6 mm long, exerted (0.5)1–2 mm beyond the anther cone, densely pubescent up to 2/3 of the length with 2–3-celled simple uniseriate trichomes at the base; stigma globose, minutely papillate, pale yellow in live plants. Fruit an ellipsoid berry, 8–11 mm in diameter, green turning translucent green-orange when ripe (purple-black in Knapp et al. 10404 but these affected by pathogens?), the surface smooth and shiny when young, with relatively thick pericarp ca. 0.1 mm; fruiting peduncle woody; fruiting pedicels 11–22 mm long, purple coloured, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the base and 1.5 mm at apex, reflexed and woody in fruit, remaining on the plant after fruit drops; fruiting calyx lobes tightly appressed to the berry, purple-coloured, calyx often splitting into two larger lobes. Seeds 35–45 per berry, ca. 1.1 mm long, ca. 1.7 mm wide, concave-reniform, narrower at one end, brown, the hilum positioned sub-laterally towards the narrower end, the testal cells pentagonal in outline; stone cells few per fruit.

Andean Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia; growing in secondary vegetation, disturbed roadsides, landslides, and gravely slopes in ceja de Selva, montane cloud forest and Polylepis forests, associated with Chusquea (Poaceae). Gunnera (Gunneraceae), Cecropia (Urticaceae) and Weinmannia (Cunoniaceae); 2,000–3,600 (-3,900) m in elevation.