Eggplant, aubergine, brinjal, or baigan (GY) is a plant species in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Solanum melongena is grown worldwide for its edible fruit.
Solanum is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, which include three food crops of high economic importance: the potato, the tomato and the eggplant. It is the largest genus in the nightshade family Solanaceae, comprising around 1,500 species. It also contains the so-called horse nettles, as well as numerous plants cultivated for their ornamental flowers and fruit.
Michel Félix Dunal was a French botanist. He was a professor of botany in Montpellier, France.
Solanum aethiopicum, the bitter tomato, Ethiopian eggplant, or nakati, is a fruiting plant of the genus Solanum mainly found in Asia and Tropical Africa. It is also known as Ethiopian nightshade, garden eggs, pumpkin-on-a-stick, and mock tomato. It is a popular vegetable in north-east India, and is known as khamen akhaba in Manipuri and samṭawk in Mizo. They are called Titay bii or simply bii in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Nepal and are relished with meat, particularly pork. These names are a result of its varied morphology, with ripe fruit often looking like a cross between an eggplant and a tomato, which are also from Solanum. In fact, the Ethiopian eggplant was so much confused with the ordinary eggplant that this was considered by some a variety violaceum of S. aethiopicum.
Solanum mammosum, commonly known as nipplefruit, fox head, cow's udder, or apple of Sodom, is an inedible Pan-American tropical fruit. The plant is grown for ornamental purposes, in part because of the distal end of the fruit's resemblance to a human breast, while the proximal end looks like a cow's udder. It is an annual in the family Solanaceae, and part of the genus Solanum, making the plant a relative of the eggplant, tomato, and potato. This poisonous fruit is native to South America, but has been naturalized in Southern Mexico, Greater Antilles, Central America, and the Caribbean. The plant adapts well to most soils, but thrives in moist, loamy soil.
Solanum torvum, also known as pendejera, turkey berry, devil's fig, pea eggplant, platebrush or susumber, is a bushy, erect and spiny perennial plant used horticulturally as a rootstock for eggplant. Grafted plants are very vigorous and tolerate diseases affecting the root system, thus allowing the crop to continue for a second year.
Solanum bahamense, commonly known as the Bahama nightshade, is a plant in the nightshade family. It is native across the West Indies, from the Florida Keys east to Dominica. It is a common species in coastal habitats, often on calcareous soils.
Solanum capsicoides, the cockroach berry, known as polohauai'i in Polynesia, is a flowering plant in the family Solanaceae. It is native to eastern Brazil but naturalized in other tropical regions, where it sometimes becomes an invasive weed.
Solanum incanum is a species of nightshade, a flowering plant in the family Solanaceae. It is native to Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, eastwards to India. The species was introduced to Taiwan and Vietnam.
The Solanaceae, or the nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and ornamentals. Many members of the family contain potent alkaloids, and some are highly toxic, but many—including tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, bell and chili peppers—are used as food. The family belongs to the order Solanales, in the asterid group and class Magnoliopsida (dicotyledons). The Solanaceae consists of about 98 genera and some 2,700 species, with a great diversity of habitats, morphology and ecology.
Andromonoecy is a breeding system of plant species in which male and hermaphrodite flowers are on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system comparable with monoecy, gynomonoecy and trimonoecy. Andromonoecy is frequent among genera with zygomorphic flowers, however it is overall rare and occurs in less than 2% of plant species. Nonetheless the breeding system has gained interest among biologists in the study of sex expression.
Solanum lichtensteinii is a species of plant in the family Solanaceae. The IUCN lists the species as least concern.
Solanum umtuma is a species of plant in the Solanaceae family.
Solanum rigidum is a species of plant in the family Solanaceae. It goes by the common names olho de vaca or olho de boi.
Solanum commersonii is a species of wild potato in the family Solanaceae. It is native to southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina, and has been introduced to Mauritius. It is a crop wild relative useful in potato breeding for its resistance to root knot nematode, soft rot, blackleg, bacterial wilt, verticillium wilt, Potato virus X, tobacco etch virus, common scab, and late blight, and for its frost tolerance and ability to cold acclimate.
Solanum habrochaites, the hairy tomato, is a species of flowering plant in the family Solanaceae, native to Ecuador and Peru. It is considered to be one of the most important sources of genetic variation for crop improvement of the cultivated tomato, Solanum lycopersicum.
Maria Sergeevna Vorontsova is a Russian-born botanist, specializing in the taxonomy of Poaceae (grasses). She was responsible for authoring the taxon for Solanum agnewiorum and Solanum umtuma. She is a member of the Accelerated Taxonomy department at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is one of the co-authors and maintainers of GrassBase, and is an editor of the journal, Phytotaxa.
Solanum arundo is a plant species with distribution in Eastern Africa and India.
Solanum alatum is a species of flowering plant in the Morelloid clade of the genus Solanum, family Solanaceae. It is native to all Canadian provinces and nearly all of the United States, and it has been introduced to scattered locales in Europe. There have been considerable taxonomic difficulties associated with this widespread taxon and its relatives Solanum americanum, S. nigrum, and S. villosum.
