Culham Research Group
Just another blogs.reading.ac.uk site
Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
  • Advent Botany
    • Advent Botany 2014
    • Advent Botany 2015
    • Advent Botany 2016
    • Advent Botany 2017
    • Advent Botany 2019
    • Taxonomic index to #AdventBotany
  • PhD Students
    • Ahmed Gawhari – PhD 2016
    • Ana Simoes
    • Anas Tawfeeq
    • Azi Jamaludin
    • Donald Zulu
    • Jordan Bilsborrow
    • Maria Christodoulou – PhD 2016
    • Tomos Jones
    • Widad Aljuhani – PhD 2015
    • Kálmán Könyves – PhD 2014
    • Marshall Heap – PhD 2014
    • Ahmed El-Banhawy
    • Hassan Rankou
    • Oli Ellingham
    • Aramide Dolapo Oshingboye – L’Oreal Visiting Fellowship 2014/2015
  • Projects
← EMA conference / Ohrid, Macedonia
#AdventBotany Day 2: Cultivated Cranberries beyond the Festive Season →

#AdventBotany Day 1: Christmas Cherry or the not-so-false Jerusalem Cherry

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Alastair Culham

By Alastair Culham

The Christmas Cherry is a small, soft-leaved, shrub bearing many small white flowers through the summer that develop into bright orange-red fruit in the autumn.  It is in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) along with potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco and many other crops.

Christmas cherry photographed in my front garden in November

This shrub is generally sold as young plants 10-20cm high and 15-30cm wide by supermarkets and garden centres around the UK as a winter bedding plant.  The Christmas Cherry is much loved for its gaudy and long-lasting fruit.  It is just about hardy enough to stay alive through UK winters although it does tend to drop all its leaves if the weather gets too cold. It has been in  cultivation in Europe since at least the 18th century and is native to central and southern America.

By Lukas Hochenleitter und Kompagnie. [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

An illustration of Solanum pseudocapsicum published in in 1792 in Plantarum indigenarum et exoticarum

An invasive species

Many garden plants in the U.K. have become established outside gardens but this species is perhaps too cold sensitive to establish and spread here.  There are a few records on the BSBI maps site centered around London while the National Biodiversity Network mapping system shows a large number of records in Bristol and surrounds. However, it is invasive in China and the U.S.A. among other places.

What botanical name does the Christmas cherry have?

I would usually, by now, have made a clear statement of the scientific name of the plant I was blogging about however there is some controversy over the taxonomy of the Christmas cherry.  Most of the literature on this species is under the name Solanum capsicastrum Link ex. Schauer (a.k.a. False Jerusalem cherry) and this name is accepted in the Royal Horticultural Plant Finder list.  However the Plant List (albeit with only two star confidence) says that Solanum capsicastrum is a synonym of Solanum pseudocapsicum L. var diflorum (Vell.) Bitter. (a.k.a. Jerusalem cherry) but then goes on to say “This name is the accepted name of an infraspecific taxon* of the species Solanum pseudocapsicum L. in the genus Solanum (family Solanaceae). * The Plant List does not attempt to include all infraspecific taxa”.  So, with grim determination I turn to the Solanaceae Source database, probably the most definitive list of species in the Solanaceae and the product of many years of detailed research.  Looking at Solanaceae source, S. capsicastrum appears as a synonym of S. pseudocapsicum but is not accompanied by a description.  The web site warns: “The names list on Solanaceae Source is a work in progress. Synonymy and nomenclature information are considered authoritative only for names that are accompanied by a full species description. For accepted names that do not yet have a species description, synonymy should be considered provisional.”

Digging in to the literature more deeply, the only comprehensive account for this species appears to be the treatment by Sandra Knapp in Flora Neotropica for the Solanum section Geminata. In this account she reports that “Solanum pseudocapsicum is a widespread and very variable species…. Cultivated forms are nearly always glabrous.”  This account makes a strong case to treat Solanum pseudocapsicum as one widespread and very variable species.  Working with Charlie Jarvis on the Linnean typification project they typified Solanum pseudocapsicum on material that reached Linnaeus via Madeira so it seems certain that this is the name to apply to our decorative Christmas Cherry.

The type specimen of Solanum pseudocapsicum from the Linnean Society Herbarium (LINN). Available on line at http://linnean-online.org/2508/

As a plant taxonomist I now feel happy that I can give the Christmas Cherry its correct botanical name, but less happy to know I’ve been using the wrong name  (along with most other people) up until now.

Tomorrow’s blog revisits cranberries.

References

Knapp, S. 2002. Flora Neotropica Vol. 84, Solanum Section Geminata (Solanaceae) (Jul. 30, 2002), pp. 1-404

KNAPP, S. & JARVIS, C.E. 1990. The typification of the names of New World Solanum species described by Linnaeus. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 104 325–367, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8339.1990.tb02227.x

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest
  • Pocket
  • Print
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Google

Like this:

Like Loading...

About Alastair Culham

A professional botanist and biologist with an interest in promoting biological knowledge and awareness to all.
View all posts by Alastair Culham →
This entry was posted in Advent, Herbarium RNG, Public Engagement with Science. Bookmark the permalink.
← EMA conference / Ohrid, Macedonia
#AdventBotany Day 2: Cultivated Cranberries beyond the Festive Season →
Logging In...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • 1 Reply
  • 0 Comments
  • 0 Tweets
  • 0 Facebook
  • 1 Pingback
Last reply was December 2, 2017
  1. #AdventBotany Day 1 – Christmas Cherry or the not-so-false Jerusalem Cherry by Alastair Culham « Herbology Manchester
    View December 2, 2017

    […] via #AdventBotany Day 1 – Christmas Cherry or the not-so-false Jerusalem Cherry — Culham Research Gr… […]

    Reply
  • Recent Posts

    • A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Community fungal DNA workshop
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 6: Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly…
    • Final call: help identify potentially invasive plants
    • #AdventBotany 2019 Day 2: Death by chocolate
  • Recent Comments

    • Specimens, Specimens: Uses | Herbarium World on Brief notes on some Percival Wheats
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 15: Mahleb
    • Tendrils: 151218 – The Unconventional Gardener on Advent Botany 2015 – Day 17: Sgan t’sek
    • Tomos Jones on A personal reflection on Wild about Weeds – author Jack Wallington
    • Future Invaders in your Garden? – The Gardening Zoologist on Future invaders at RHS Chelsea
  • Categories

    • Advent
    • Art
    • Catalogue of Life
    • Collectors
    • e-learning
    • Hawkins Research Group
    • Herbarium RNG
    • i4Life
    • MSc Plant Diversity
    • PhD research
    • Public Engagement with Science
    • RHS research
    • Type
    • Uncategorized
    • Welcome
  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries RSS
    • Comments RSS
    • WordPress.org
    • RSS - Posts
    • RSS - Comments
  • Subscribe to Blog via Email

    Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Culham Research Group
Proudly powered by WordPress.
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
%d bloggers like this: