Solanum ensifolium

Common Name: Erubia

Family: Solanaceae

Synonym(s): Solanum drymophilum O.E. Schulz

Country of Origin: Sierra de Cayey in central Puerto Rico

Description: Erubia is a spiny, evergreen shrub which can potentially grow to 18 feet in height. Sometimes, this shrub grows from a single stem, but often it branches from the base. Sharp, stiff, yellow spines, almost one-half-inch long, are located along the mid-vein of the leaves, and sometimes along the twigs. Mature shrubs have minute, whitish, star-shaped hairs on their leaves and petioles. These hairs are longer on younger shrubs and they appear on the twigs, and flowers of these younger individuals. The leaves of this shrub are alternate and lanceolate to lanceolate-oblong shaped. Its white, bisexual flowers are five-lobed and fan-shaped. The fruits are round, shiny, black berries. This shrub seems to flower and produce fruit throughout the year. Whether or not it reaches a flowering peak during a certain season is unknown, but its seed production appears to be abundant.

Only 100 to 150 plants still exist on a single, 2-acre site in the Sierra de Cayey in central Puerto Rico. This site, known as the Tetas de Cayey, is privately owned. Historically, the species may have been scattered throughout the southeastern section of the central mountains (Sierra de Cayey and Sierra de Naguabo). Although the historic range of the species is unknown, this shrub may have been locally common in sections of eastern Puerto Rico and in the western mountains. In the 196O's, one population was found in the Lares area but this population is now considered extirpated.
{Info from US Fish & Wildlife Endangered Species Website}

Accession #: 200300321

Accession Date: 2003-10-06 00:00:00

Bloom Status: 🌸 Flowering

Location: 1304

Quantity: 2

Source: Bryan Connolly ex Fairchild Tropical Gar

Provenance:

Rcvd as Solanum drymophilum.

Originally wild collected from Las Tetas de Cayey, Puerto Rico in an "understory of dry limestone forest".  Information from Iris BG - Brian Harding at Fairchild Tropical BG, February 2020.

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Subclass: euasterid I

Order: Solanales

Family: Solanaceae

SubFamily: Solanoideae

Tribe: Solaneae