SOLANACEAE

Herbs or shrubs, erect, trailing or scandent, rarely trees. Stem erect, branched, hairy or prickly, occasionally underground fleshy. Leaves exstipulate, alternate or on flowering shoots usually in unequal pairs, never truly opposite, simple, entire, lobed or pinnate. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, rarely unisexual, usually 5-merous, hypogynous, solitary or clustered in cymes, often extra-axillary; bracts and bracteoles absent. Sepals 5, fused, usually 5-lobed or toothed, usually persistent, often accrescent. Petals 5, fused; corolla in various forms: rotate, funnelform, campanulate, often plicate; lobes usually 5, contorted, induplicate, valvate or imbricate. Stamens 5, inserted on the corolla tube; anthers ovate or oblong, dehiscence longitudinal by slits or by pores. Carpels 2, syncarpous; ovary superior, obliquely placed, usually 2-locular or rarely 3-5-locular or imperfectly 1- or 4-locular, ovules many per loculus on prominent swollen placentas, occasionally fewer or solitary ovule, placentation axile; style simple; stigma usually 2-lobed or 2-partite. Fruit berry or capsule. Seeds often discoid with a pitted testa.

100 genera and about 2700 species