''Solanum sibundoyense'' is a species of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the family

Solanaceae The Solanaceae , or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and orn ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

, specifically to

Sibundoy Sibundoy (Camsá: Tabanok "village") is a town and municipality in the Putumayo Department of the Republic of Colombia. The town existed well before the Spanish came in 1534. The Inca, under Huayna Cápac, conquered the local people in 1492 and ...

and surrounding areas, and usually resides in

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

s, 1400–2300 meters in elevation. It is also known as tomate salvaje or tomate silvestre to natives of Colombia, and also sometimes called ''Cyphomandra sibundoyensis''. It's a small tree 4–8 m tall. Stems glabrous or sparsely puberulent with glandular and eglandular hairs less than 0.5 mm long.

Uses

The fruits are edible and have a pleasant acidulous taste.Bohs, L. 1994. Cyphomandra (Solanaceae). Flora Neotropica Monograph 63, New York Botanical Garden, page 134. The plant produces some of the largest fruits known in section Pachyphylla. The fruit pulp of some trees is sweet, juicy, and pleasant-tasting, and in others it is acidulous, and without any sweetness. A purplish layer of soft pulp surrounds the seeds. Fruits ripen slowly, but once ripe their shelf life is longer than that of the

tamarillo The tamarillo (''Solanum betaceum'') is a small tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Solanaceae (the nightshade family). It is best known as the species that bears the tamarillo, an egg-shaped edible fruit. It is also known as the tree ...

. Although a good candidate for trial as a fruit crop, it may be difficult to successfully cultivate this species outside the specialized climate of southern Colombia where it is native. In

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, it was noted that trees cultivated in semi-shade set large crops of fruit, but plants grown in full sun performed very poorly. The trees were somewhat subject to branch die-back on fruiting branches. Historically, the fruit has been used to make black, blue, or yellow dye by the natives of the Sibundoy Valley of southern Colombia. Some sources show that the placenta of the fruit may be used as a cure for intestinal worms. Schultes and Raffauf (1990) report that the Kamsá Indians of the Sibundoy Valley (southwestern Colombia) use a decoction of the leaves for this purpose.

References

* Natural History Museu

Solanum, sibundoyense Edible Solanaceae Endemic flora of Colombia Tropical fruit Vulnerable plants Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Plants described in 1988 {{Solanales-stub