BOTANY WITH THE BASICS OF HYDROBOTANY (AQUATIC PLANTS OF UKRAINE) - B.Ye. Yakubenko - 2011

X. SEED PLANTS

Nightshade Family (Solanaceae)

Herbaceous plants, and in the tropics also shrubs or small trees, with alternate, mostly simple leaves without stipules. Flowers are most commonly gathered in cyme (cincinus) inflorescences, actinomorphic, slightly zygomorphic, pentamerous, with a sympetalous corolla and five stamens attached to its tube; the pistil consists of two carpels, with a superior bi-, tri-, or pentalocular Ovary and numerous ovules. Flower formula: *K₍₅₎C₍₅₎A₍₅₎G_{(2) (3) (5)}. The fruit is a berry or a capsule.

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Fig. 156. Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara)

The family encompasses 90 genera and about 2,900 species distributed almost universally, with the greatest diversity found in the tropics and subtropics of South and Central America. A characteristic feature of the family is the presence of Alkaloids in the plants (such as atropine, atropamine, betaine, nicotine, solanine, scopolamine, etc.). Among the Representatives of the family are valuable food crops, medicinal plants, and poisonous plants. Based on the fruit type, the family is conventionally divided into two groups: those with a berry fruit and those with a capsule fruit.

Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara L.). A perennial herbaceous plant. Uliginosophyte, entomophile, zoochore (Fig. 156). A subshrub, 30–180 cm tall, with a thick, woody, creeping rhizome. Stems are long, tortuous, angular, branched, climbing, and woody at the base.

Phyllotaxis is alternate. Leaves are long-petiolate, ranging from ternate—with a large ovate terminal lobe and narrow-lanceolate lateral lobes—to entire, ovate-lanceolate, and gradually acuminate. Inflorescences are sympodial, consisting of monochasial cymes on long peduncles. Flowers are bisexual, actinomorphic, pentamerous, with a double perianth. The corolla is purple and rotate. Yellow anthers protrude from the corolla throat. Fruits are red, globose-ovoid berries up to 1 cm long. It blooms from May to August.

It serves as food for reed beetles, narrow-winged moths, and beavers.

It grows along the banks of rivers and lakes, among shrubs, and in damp habitats throughout all Regions of the Forest-Steppe of Ukraine.