Solanum psilophyllum Stehmann & Giacomin

Treelet to 4 m, rhizomatous with underground stems; young stems terete, glabrous; new growth completely glabrous, occasionally minutely papillate; bark of older stems greenish brown, slightly winged from the leaf bases. Sympodial units difoliate, geminate; leaves of a pair differing in size but not usually in shape. Leaves simple, the major leaves 10–15(-25) cm long, 4–13 cm wide, elliptic to narrowly elliptic, occasionally wider in the distal third and narrowly obovate, membranous, glabrous on both surfaces, the abaxial surface often drying paler than the adaxial surface; primary veins 8–11 pairs, drying somewhat lighter than the lamina; base attenuate, somewhat oblique; margins entire; apex acute, the tip somewhat blunt; petiole 1.5–2 cm long, glabrous; minor leaves 6–8 cm long, 2–3 cm wide, differing from the majors only in size and sometimes not present in dried specimens. Inflorescences 0.2–2 cm long, opposite the leaves or appearing to arise from the leaf axils, unbranched, but apparently sometimes with 2 inflorescences from one axil and appearing branched (Giacomin et al. 186), with 5–8 flowers, glabrous; peduncle 0.1–2 cm; pedicles 1.2–1.5 cm long, ca. 0.5 mm in diameter at the base, ca. 1.5 mm in diameter at the swollen apex with a marked constriction just below the calyx lobes, slender and expanding distally, spreading or pendant at anthesis, glabrous, articulated at the base; pedicel scars 0.5 -1 mm apart, more congested in the distal part of the inflorescence. Buds obovoid, the corolla strongly exserted from the calyx tube before anthesis. Flowers 5-merous, perfect. Calyx with the tube 0.5–1 mm long, broadly conical, the lobes 1–1.5 mm long, deltate to triangular, reflexed at anthesis, glabrous. Corolla 1.2–1.4 cm in diameter, white, stellate, lobed 1/2 to 2/3 of the way to the base, the lobes ca. 5 mm long, 2.5 mm wide, spread at anthesis, glabrous with the tips minutely papillate. Stamens 3.5–4 mm long; filament tube ca. 0.5 mm long, the free portion of the filaments ca. 0.5 mm long, glabrous; anthers 2.5–3 mm long, ca. 1 mm wide, ellipsoid, yellow, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age. Ovary glabrous; style 5–6 mm long, glabrous; stigma not expanded, blunt, the surface minutely papillate. Fruit a globose berry, 1–1.3 cm in diameter, green, the pericarp not markedly shiny, thick; fruiting pedicels 1.5–1.7 cm long, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the base, 2.5–3 mm and expanded at the apex, woody and pendant; calyx lobes in fruit not markedly expanding, but distinctly differentiated from the enlarged pedicel apex. Seeds not known.

In the south-eastern part of the state of Minas Gerais, in islands of forest (capões) associated with iron or quartzite formations in the Iron Quadrangle and Serra do Cipó regions, in the southern limit of Espinhaço mountain range (Figure 13).