Description:

• Herbs, shrubs, erect or climbing, rarely trees, often with branched hairs, occasionally spiny
• Leaves alternate, occasionally paired or fascicled, rarely verticillate, simple to lobed or pinnate; stipules 0
• Flowers bisexual, regular or slightly irregular, rarely solitary, usually in terminal, leaf-opposed or extra-axillary cymes, sometimes appearing umbellate or fasciculate
• Calyx 4- or 5(6 or 7)-toothed or -lobed, usually persistent, sometimes accrescent, sometimes inflated in fruit
• Corolla 4- or 5(6 or 7)-lobed; tube cylindric, funnel-shaped, or campanulate or rotate; lobes induplicate, valvate, equal or subequal
• Stamens as many as corolla lobes and alternating with them, rarely fewer, arising from corolla tube; filaments short or long; anthers 2-thecous, separated or conniving into a cone, with thecae parallel or diverging, dehiscing by terminal pores or longitudinal slits
• Disc annular, cup-shaped, entire, or lobed, rarely absent
• Ovary superior, mostly 2-locular and orientated diagonally in flower, sometimes 3-5-locular, sessile or shortly stipitate, with many anatropous or amphitropous ovules in each locule; style terminal, filiform or stout; stigma capitate, cyathiform, globose, often bifid
• Fruit a berry or capsule dehiscing by valves or circumscissile
• Seeds usually many

Nomenclature:

• Solanaceae
  • Wright: 87 (1904)
  • Wright: 207 (1906)
  • Podlech & Roessler: 1 (1969)
  • D'Arcy: 75 (1991)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 90, species ± 2600, cosmopolitan, concentrated in tropical and subtropical America
• Southern Africa: Genera 9 (5 exotics), species ± 76 (± 33 exotics)
  • 4 genera indigenous, 5 others represented by introductions, some of which have become widely naturalised. Occasional garden escapes (not included here) are *Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium (L.) Mill., *Petunia hybrida Vilm. and *Cyphomandra betacea (Cav.) Sendtn.

References:

• D'ARCY, W.G. 1991. The Solanaceae since 1976, with a review of its biogeography. In J.G. Hawkes, R.N. Lester, M. Nee and N. Estrada, Solanaceae III. Taxonomy-chemistry-evolution: 75. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• PODLECH, D. & ROESSLER, H. 1969. Solanaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 124
• WRIGHT, C.H. 1904. Solanaceae. Flora capensis 4,2
• WRIGHT, C.H. 1906. Solanaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 4,2

Resources:

• Key to Solanaceae genera

• Solanaceae genera: