Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Solanum hapalum
Common name
Furry Nightshade
Family
Solanaceae
Where found
Rainforest and wet forest, preferring roadsides and recently logged sites. Around Batemans Bay and Nelligen.
Notes
Shrub to 1 m high, rhizomatous. Fruit fleshy. Branches densely stellate hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see). Leaves alternating up the stems, 4–7 cm long, 23–35 mm wide, stellate hairy, upper surface grey green, lower surface white or yellowish, tips blunt or pointed, bases sometimes cordate. Flowers mauve to whitish, 15–25 mm in diameter, almost pentagonal, with 5 lobes, in 1–3-flowered clusters. Fruit bright red, 6–7 mm in diameter, largely to partly covered by the calyx lobes. Flowers most of the year.
Separated from Solanum densevestitum. That species is now considered to grow only in Qld. (Australian Plant Names Index accessed 3 May 2021)
Description based on that in Bean, A.R. (2004), The taxonomy and ecology of Solanum subg. Leptostemonum (Dunal) Bitter (Solanaceae) in Queensland and far north-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Austrobaileya 6(4): 674-676, Fig. 13, Map 1
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