Schwenckia americana

Schwenckia americana is a slender annual herb of the Solanaceae widely distributed throughout the warm Americas and naturalised in tropical Africa and parts of Asia, where it occurs in disturbed sandy soils, fallow fields, roadsides, and open savanna. Plants are erect, sparingly branched, 20-60 cm tall, with a slender taproot and finely puberulent stems. The alternate leaves are simple, ovate to obovate or elliptic-oblong, 2-6 cm long, with entire to slightly undulate margins and short petioles; both surfaces are sparsely covered with very short glandular and eglandular hairs. The inflorescence is a terminal lax raceme or panicle of small, characteristically narrow tubular flowers that distinguish the genus within the Solanaceae. Each corolla is 8-15 mm long, very slender and pale greenish-yellow to dull purplish, with five short rounded lobes at the apex bearing five small dark-purplish thickenings or appendages between them — a diagnostic feature of Schwenckia. The fruit is a small ovoid capsule enclosed by the persistent tubular calyx and contains numerous tiny angular seeds dispersed by wind and water.