On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)



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On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)

23

On the identity and typification of  



Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)

Suelma Ribeiro-Silva

1

, Sandra Knapp



2

, Carolyn E.B. Proença

3

1 Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação da Biodiversidade do Cerrado e Caatinga (CECAT), Instituto 

Chico Mendes; Prédio do Centro de Excelência do Cerrado; Jardim Botânico de Brasília, SMDB Cj 12, Lago 

Sul, Brasília, Distrito Federal, 70297-400, Brazil Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, 

Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Ciências 

Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília, C.P. 4457 Brasília, Distrito Federal, 70910-900, Brazil

Corresponding author: Suelma Ribeiro-Silva (

suelma.ribeirosilva@gmail.com

)

Academic editor:



 L. Giacomin  |  Received 2 November 2016  |  Accepted 19 December 2016  |  Published 5 January 2017

Citation:

 Ribeiro-Silva S, Knapp S, Proença CEB (2017) On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal 

(Solanaceae). PhytoKeys 76: 23–29. 

https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.76.11031



Abstract

Solanum brasilianum Dunal was described by Dunal in 1813 with reference only to an illustration in an 

18

th



 century work by Leonard Plukenet. The plate is difficult to interpret and no explicitly related speci-

mens were available so the name S. brasilianum has long been regarded as “unresolved” and has never been 

used. Material matching the Plukenet plate was discovered in the herbarium of the University of Oxford 

(OXF) by Stephen Harris during his study of the English privateer William Dampier’s Brazilian collec-

tion. The specimen is referable to a common Brazilian Solanum that is a member of the Torva cladeSola-

num  pani culatum L., making S. brasilianum Dunal a heterotypic synonym. We lectotypify S. brasilianum 

here, and designate an epitype using the Dampier material from OXF.



Keywords

Brazil, epitype, Leonard Plukenet, nomenclature, Solanum, William Dampier, William Sherard

PhytoKeys 76: 23–29 (2017)

doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.76.11031

http://phytokeys.pensoft.net

Copyright Suelma Ribeiro-Silva et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC 

BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Suelma Ribeiro-Silva et al.  /  PhytoKeys 76: 23–29 (2017)

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Introduction

Brazil is one of the hotspots of species richness for the mega-diverse genus Solanum L. 

(Solanaceae), with 272 accepted species (Flora do Brasil 2020, http://floradobrasil.jbrj.

gov.br/reflora/floradobrasil/FB14716). Much recent work has gone into the resolution 

of names in the genus (e.g., Knapp et al. 2015), in preparation for the Flora do Brasil 

2020 project, and only a few Solanum names remain without status in recent up-

dates. Most of these are names attributed to the Italian naturalist Domenico Agostino 

Vandelli (1735-1816), who worked in Coimbra, Portugal in the mid-18

th

 century, 



where many new plants from Brazil arrived to Europe (Guimarães 2016; see Solan-

aceae Source http://www.solanaceaesource.org or Flora do Brasil 2020 http://florado-

brasil.jbrj.gov.br/ for these names). Another of these unresolved names is Michel-Félix 

Dunal’s (1813) Solanum brasilianum, whose identity we resolve here.



Solanum brasilianum Dunal

Michel-Félix Dunal described S. brasilianum citing as his only material a figure (“t. 454, 

f. 4”) from Plukenet’s (1705) Amaltheum botanicum (Dunal 1813: 239) corresponding 

to the polynomial “Solanum Brasilianum, folio integro mucronato glabro. Papas Ameri-



canui floribus in summitate caudis.” Plukenet’s polynomial appeared in the Appendix 

to the Amaltheum botanicum (Plukenet 1705) along with other Brazilian and Australian 

plants based on the collections of William Dampier and Chinese plants sent by Jacob 

Cunningham (“cum multis aliis in hac appendice recensitis, quae ex Hollandia Nova, 

atque Brasilia a D. Dampier fibi allatae, necnon ex Insula Cheusan a laudatissimo vi-

ron Domino Jacobo Cunningham sunt trasnmissae”: Plukenet 1705: pp. 215). Dunal 

(1813) extended the polynomial with observations he took directly from the figure – 

“In figura: folia ovate, suminate, inermia; flores corymbosi; corolla pentagona; antherae 

divaricatae”. He placed S. brasilianum amongst his armed species of uncertain status, 

due to the scarce information available. Plukenet’s (1705) figure is extremely diagram-

matic, and has none of the diagnostic features that would enable placement in a species 

group of Solanum (Fig. 1); the polynomial however does allow its placement in Solanum 

by reference to its similarity with potatoes (“Papas Americani”).

Otto Sendtner, in Flora brasiliensis (Sendtner 1846: 112) also treated S. brasilianum 

as a name of uncertain status, and extended Dunal’s (1813) description, still only using 

the Plukenet illustration as his basis for recognizing the species. He compared it to the 

Mexican species S. glaucescens Zucc. (see Clark et al. 2015) based on its curved spines 

at the leaf bases [“Figura refert ramulum (ex habitu fere S. glaucescentis) aculeo uno 

recurvo ad folii basin, foliis petiolatis ovato-lanceolatis acuminatis basi acutiusculis 6-7 

nervilis solitariis; inflorescentiam corymbiformem, subapicalem 8-floram, repetito-

dichotomam,  pedunculo  comuni breviori quam secundarii; pedicellos graciles; 

alabastra oblonga obtusa; calycem 5-fidum vel partitum? laciniis acutiusculis, 

corollam magnam 5-angularem, antheras longas, angustas, lineares, corollam 



On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)

25

Figure 1. Plukenet, L. 1705. Amaltheum botanicum tab. 454, f. 4.




Suelma Ribeiro-Silva et al.  /  PhytoKeys 76: 23–29 (2017)

26

aequantes.”]. He misinterpreted the small axillary leaf shoots for curved spines; the 



plate is of an unarmed plant as Dunal later recorded in his treatment for the Prodromus 

(Dunal 1852: 372), placing it among unarmed species, but still of uncertain status.

Dampier’s specimen

William Dampier was an English privateer and navigator who circumnavigated the 

globe three times between 1686 and 1710 (Preston and Preston 2005). He was a keen 

observer of nature and during his travels HMS Roebuck Dampier collected a hand-

ful of plant specimens from Australia and Brazil. These he gave to John Woodward, a 

professor at Gresham College, who later gave them to the botanist William Sherard, 

who in turn bequeathed them to Oxford University when he died in 1728 (Harris et 

al. 2016). They are now kept in the Sherardian Herbarium at OXF. During a study of 

these historical collections, Stephen Harris (OXF) found a specimen collected by Wil-

liam Dampier in Salvador, Bahia, during his time in Brazil in April-May 1699 (Harris 

et al. 2016). The sheet is a single specimen with consisting of a small branch with three 

attached leaves and a single leaf not attached the branch, but clearly belonging to it 

(Fig. 2). The specimen has a label with the polynomial taken from Plukenet (1705) 

“Solanum Brasilianum, folio integro macronato glabro, Papas Americani floribus in 

summutate caulis. Pluk. Amalth. App. Tab. 454, f. 4” in Sherard’s hand. The speci-

men is a good match for the illustration in Plukenet (1705) and is likely to have been 

the specimen from which that plate was made. Plukenet was based in London at the 

time the Amaltheum botanicum was begin prepared (Jarvis 2007), and he was shown 

Dampier’s specimens by his “learned friend [Amicissimus & eruditis Vir]” John Wood-

ward (Plukenet 1705: 215).

The branch shown in plate 454, fig. 4 of Plukenet’s Amalthaeum botanicum (1705) 

is completely unarmed, has leaves with entire margins that are markedly discolourous, 

and are adaxially glabrescent and abaxially densely stellate-tomentose. The small axil-

lary buds above the lower leaves are likely the elements misinterpreted by Sendtner 

(1846) as spines at the leaf bases (see Fig. 2). The open flowers have anthers like those 

of S. paniculatum (and other members of the Torva clade sensu Stern et al. 2011) that 

characteristically spread when dry. These morphological characteristics clearly show 

that the specimen belongs to the taxon currently recognized as S. paniculatum L.. 



Solanum paniculatum was described by Linnaeus in his second edition of Species Plan-

tarum (1762: 267) based on an illustration “Jurepeba” from Willem Piso’s De Indiae 

utrisque re naturali et medici libri 14 (Piso 1658; see Knapp and Jarvis 1991). Solanum 

paniculatum is a common small tree or shrub occurring in all phytogeographical areas 

and regions of Brazil (Flora do Brasil 2020 http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/jabot/flora-

dobrasil/FB127325) and northeastern Argentina and eastern Paraguay (http://www.

solanaceaesource.org). It is also extremely variable morphologically, with leaf shapes 

in particular varying from deeply lobed to entire, even on an individual plant (see Fig. 

16 in Knapp and Jarvis 1991). The Dampier specimen has four entire leaves, with gla-




On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)

27

Figure 2. Brazil. Bahia: Salvador, April-May 1699, W. Dampier “herb. Dampier no. 451” (epitype, 

designated here: OXF! [Sher-0451-a]).



Suelma Ribeiro-Silva et al.  /  PhytoKeys 76: 23–29 (2017)

28

brescent upper leaf surfaces beearing sparse stellate trichomes, and their shape is almost 



identical to distal portions of stems from a modern specimen (e.g. Medeiros Neto 27 at 

VIES) of S. paniculatum from Bahia and, like Dampier’s specimen, this very similar 

plant was collected with flowers in April.

Since Dunal (1813) did not have access to the Dampier specimen when he described 



S. brasilianum the Plukenet image (Fig. 1, upper right hand illustration, “Tab. 454, f. 

4”) is the only original material (McNeill et al. 2012) and we select it here as the lecto-

type. Because the illustration is so diagrammatic, and the Dampier specimen is clearly 

that from which it was prepared, we select the specimen “Herb. Dampier n. 451”, col-

lected by Dampier, as the epitype. Thus the discovery of this long-neglected specimen 

of S. brasilianum and its examination have allowed us to elucidate its true identity, and 

we here recognize S.brasilianum as a heterotypic synonym of S. paniculatum.

Taxonomic treatment

Solanum brasilianum

 Dunal, Hist. Nat. Solanum 239. 1813.

Type.

 Brazil. Sin. loc., no collector cited (lectotype, designated here: Plukenet, L. 1705. 



Amaltheum botanicum tab. 454, f. 4; epitype, designated here: Brazil. Bahia: Salvador, 

April-May 1699, W. Dampier “herb. Dampier no. 451”[OXF! (Sher-0451-a)]).



Current accepted name.

 Solanum paniculatum L.



Acknowledgements

We thank Stephen A. Harris (OXF) who hosted the visit of S.R-S to Oxford. Thanks 

to CNPq/CAPES/FAPDF through the Reflora Program by grants to S.R-S. who also 

thanks ICMBio/CECAT. S.K. was funded by the National Science Foundation (USA) 

PBI award “Solanum-a worldwide monograph” (DEB-0316614).

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Document Outline

  • On the identity and typification of Solanum brasilianum Dunal (Solanaceae)
  • Abstract
  • Introduction
  • Solanum brasilianum Dunal
    • Dampier’s specimen
  • Taxonomic treatment
    • Solanum brasilianum Dunal, Hist. Nat. Solanum 239. 1813.
  • Acknowledgements
  • References

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