Chamaesaracha edwardsiana Averett, hairy false nightshade, plateau false nightshade. Perennial herb, rhizomatous, not rosetted, several–stemmed at base, spreading or decumbent to ascending, in range to 20 cm tall; shoots with only cauline leaves, stems pubescent with short dendritic hairs, foliage essentially glabrous (glabrate); belowground axis mostly vertical but irregularly so, knobby with many enlarged axillary buds, < 3 mm diameter, covered with brown periderm.
Stems cylindric, < 3 mm diameter, lower portion often purplish, glabrate to sparsely pubescent with scattered dendritic hairs having 2—5 branches above midpoint (hairs mostly around node) or aging glabrescent.
Leaves helically alternate, simple and petiolate to subsessile, without stipules; petiole to 8.5 mm long, broadly channeled, lower side sometimes with short dendritic hairs (lower cauline leaves); blade oblanceolate to obovate, 5.5—35 × 2.5—9 mm, long–tapered at base, entire or subentire and characteristically wavy on margins, acute at tip, pinnately veined with principal veins sunken on upper surface and raised on lower surface, sometimes with stiff, long hairs on margins near base.
Inflorescence cyme, axillary, in range 1—2–flowered, formed at fork or junction of a pair of leaves, the continuing shoot, the pedicel bearing a flower, and later another axillary bud or short from the second leaf; flower initially horizontally oriented on ascending pedicel, lacking bracts, hairy; pedicel slender, 15—25+ mm long, tannish with conspicuous, radiating, stalked glandular hairs and 2–armed dendritic and unbranched hairs to 1 mm long.
Flower bisexual, radial, 12—18 mm across; calyx 5–lobed, outer surface densely hirsute with unbranched and 2–armed hairs (forked above midpoint) to 1.5 mm long; tube hemispheroid, ca. 2 × 3 mm; lobes appressed to corolla, triangular, 1—2.1 × 0.5 mm increasing width in fruit; corolla shallowly 5–lobed, rotate; tube ringlike, 1 mm long, white; throat broadly spreading with broadly acute tips of lobes, 5—6 mm long, pale yellow internally to whitish (white eye) with a centered star–shaped pattern light yellow brown to light yellow–green, lower surface often with broad rose–red rays to 5 lobes, with a beard of white hairs within star opposite points, margin sparsely short–ciliate and pubescent at each lobe; stamens 5, arising at top of corolla tube; filaments suberect to ascending, cylindric fine–tapered at top, 4.5—5 mm long, whitish at base to white or pale greenish above, glabrous or with dendritic hairs just above flaring base; anthers basifixed, dithecal strongly 2–lobed, 1.4—2.2 mm long, pale light yellow, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen light yellow; pistil 1; ovary superior, conic, 2 × 2 mm, cream–colored, glabrous, 2–chambered, each chamber with several ovules; style cylindric strongly curved above midpoint, ± 5 mm long, white changing to greenish above midpoint, channeled and flared approaching stigma; stigma terminal, dark green.
Fruit berry, to 10–seeded, broadly ovoid, ca. 4.5 × 4.5 mm, tannish white, leathery, pulp lose, whitish; persistent calyx with triangular lobes leaning over top of fruit.
Seed kidney–shaped, 1.5—2 × 1 mm, brown, having pitted surface from collapsed outer walls of cells, hilum centered.
A. C. Gibson