Solanum melongena

Solanum melongena L., Sp. Pl. 1: 186. 1753; Roxb., Fl. Ind. (Car. ed.) 2.1: 556. 1832; Clarke in Hook. f., Fl. Brit. India 4: 235. 1885; Fl. China @ eFloras.org 17: 325. 1994; Nasir, Fl. Pak. @ eFloras.org p. 17; S. esculentum Dunal, Hist. Nat. Solanum 208, pl. 3. 1813; S. insanum L., Mant. Pl. 1: 46. 1767; S. melongena var. esculentum (Dunal) Nees, Linn. Soc. London 17: 49. 1837; S. melongena var. serpentinum L., Stand. Cycl. Hort. 3: 3182. 1929.

Suffruticose, annual, up to 90 cm tall. Stem and branches stellate hairy with few recurved prickles. Petioles 2-4.5(-9) cm; stellate pubescent; leaf blade ovate to oblong-ovate or rhomboid-ovate, 5-20 cm x 4-15 cm, stellate tomentose or sometimes with a few fine prickles on both surfaces, densely abaxially, base oblique, margin sinuate-lobed, apex acute. Inflorescence mostly solitary, flowers rarely in reduced racemes with up to 5 flowers; peduncle obsolete. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, usually 5-merous, hypogynous, purple to pale violet; pedicels recurved, 1-1.8 cm (up to 5 cm in fruit). Calyx campanulate, 15-18 mm long, stellate-tomentose, often with ca. 3 mm long prickles abaxially; lobes 5, sometimes more, lanceolate, persistent and enlarging in fruit. Corolla purplish or violet, rotate; tube short; limb spreading, 3-5 cm broad, lobes 5, deltate, ca. 1 cm, stellate-tomentose on outside. Stamens 5 or 6, inserted high in corolla tube; exserted; filaments ca. 2.5 mm; anthers ca. 7.5 mm long, often connivent around style, dehiscing by apical pores (often later splitting longitudinally). Ovary 2-5 locular with swollen placentas, ovules numerous per loculus, placentation axile; style slender, 4-7 mm long; stigma capitate, bifid, green. Berry purple, glossy, greatly variable in size and form, subglobose mostly more than 6 cm in diameter or ovoid or narrow elongated; with a thick spongy, whitish mesocarp and septal regions. Seeds lenticular, yellowish, 2.8-3.9 mm x 2.5-3.5 mm.

Flowering and Fruiting: Almost throughout the year
Common Names: Eggplant, Brinjal, Aubergine; Baingan (Hindi and Punjabi)