Solanum pittosporifolium Hemsl.

Small shrub or woody vine, if shrubby, plants usually scandent or trailing to 2 m long. Stems glabrous, slightly ridged, thin and flexuous; new growth glabrous or with a few glandular trichomes. Bark of older stems pale brown. Sympodial units plurifoliate. Leaves simple, 5–14 cm long, 4–5 cm wide, narrowly elliptic, membranous, the upper surfaces glabrous or minutely pubescent with simple uniseriate trichomes < 0.5 mm long, these 1–2-celled, the lower surfaces glabrous or with simple uniseriate trichomes along the midvein; primary veins 5–7 pairs, somewhat impressed above; base attenuate, decurrent onto the petiole; margins entire, slightly undulate; apex acuminate or occasionally acute; petiole 0.5–3 cm long, glabrous of with a few 1–2-celled simple uniseriate trichomes, the occasionally minutely glandular. Inflorescences terminal or lateral, 2–10 cm long, open and usually many times branched, with 10–40 (+) flowers, glabrous; peduncle 2–5.5 cm long; pedicels 6–11 mm long, ca. 1 mm in diameter at the apex, ca. 0.5 mm in diameter at the base, spreading, glabrous or minutely pubescent with simple glandular trichomes, articulated at the base, leaving a short peg 1.5–2 mm long; pedicel scars irregularly spaced 2–10 mm apart, more closely spaced distally. Buds ellipsoid, the corolla strongly exerted from the calyx tube before anthesis. Flowers all perfect, 5-merous. Calyx tube ca. 1 mm long, the lobes 0.5–1 mm long, deltate to triangular, glabrous. Corolla 1–1.4 cm in diameter, white to violet with green spots at the base of each lobe making a green eye, stellate, lobed ca. 3/4 of the way to the base, the lobes 5–6 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, reflexed at anthesis, minutely papillose at the tips and margins, otherwise glabrous. Filament tube < 0.5 mm long, the free portion of the filaments 0.5–0.75 mm long, glabrous; anthers 3–4 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, ellipsoid, poricidal at the tips, the pores lengthening to slits with age. Ovary glabrous; style 5–7.5 mm long, glabrous; stigma capitate, the surface minutely papillate. Fruit a globose berry, to 1 cm in diameter, bright red when ripe, juicy, the pericarp thin and shiny; fruiting pedicels 1.2–1.4 cm long, 0.5–1 mm in diameter at the base, not markedly woody, spreading. Seeds > 30 per berry, ca. 3.5 mm long, 2.5 mm wide, flattened reniform, pale yellow, the surface with “hairs” ca. 0.5 mm long from the lateral cell walls. Chromosome number: not known.

(Figure 73). Solanum pittosporifolium is found at a wide variety of elevations (300–1500 m) from Bhutan and the Kashmir region at the India/Pakistan border through China to Japan, Vietnam and the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.