J. Edmonds & I. Friis (2006) Solanum Flora of Somalia 3: 206-219

Plants shrubs up to 1.5 m tall, usually heaviliy armed with recurved prickles on the stems and straight prickles on the leaves, rarely almost unarmed, densely white to pale greyish white with floccose stellate hairs. Leaves alternate, of comparable size throughout a plant; petioles 0.7-5.5 cm long; blades ovate, somewhat leathery, 3-18 cm(-23) cm long, 1-10(-18) cm wide, bases cordate or rounded, often unequal, margins entire to sinuate or lobed, tips bluntly acute, usually both surfaces, but particularly the upper surfaces, densely white tomentose to floccose. Inflorescences usually lateral but sometimes leaf-opposed; peduncles 0-1.5 cm long; axes up to 5 cm long, densely tomentose, with 5-10 flowers, with 1 basal bisexual flower, the remainder staminate; pedicels 1-3 cm long, the lowermost the longest, usually densely armed with small prickles. Calyces 1-1.5 cm long, desnely floccose, largest on the basal flower, often very prickly, elongating to 2 cm in fruit, lobes lanceolate, about 0.8 cm long; corollas stellate, pale to dark purple, about 2.5 cm across, lobes broadly lanceoalte to ovate, acute; anthers 3-4 mm ong, subsessile; styles of basal flower exceeding the anthers by 1-2 mm, reduced in upper flowers. Fruits yellow, toughh or hard, about 2 cm across; seeds pale brown.

Solanum incanum grows in disturbd and waste places at 0 -1550 m. It is known from regions N1-3, c2, and C1-3 of the Flora of Somalia but is widespread in tropical Africa, the Middle East, and India.

©Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; reproduced with permission. Habit shrubs up to 1.5 m tall, usually heavily armed with recurved prickles on the stems and straight prickles on the leaves, rarely almost unarmed.

Leaves ovate to elliptic, 3-18(-23) cm long, 1-10(-18) cm wide, usually densely whote floccose to tomentose on both surfaees but more so on the upper surfaces.

Infloresences usually laterall, sometimes leaf-opposed, with 1-10 flowers, only the basal flower bisexual, the remainder staminate with reduced styles

Flowers stellate, pale to dark purple, about 2.5 cm in diameter, anthers alll about 3-4 mm long, style of basal flowe rexceding the anthers by 1-2 mm, those of ther flowers shorter.

Fruits tough or hard yellow berries aboit 2 cm in diamter.

Solanum incanum grows in disturbed ground and waste places.