Mountain Pride Purple Nightshade

Solanum xanti 'Mountain Pride'

Solanum xanti ‘Mountain Pride’ in full bloom in March before treatments. Photo: SK Reid.

Summary

This California native cultivar of purple nightshade also had mortality issues beginning before establishment, but only the two higher treatments had mortality after treatment irrigation began in 2015. It was also a highly variable plant in form and size; on each treatment some plants grew very large and vigorous (e.g.: 36”H x 108”W) while others stayed half that size, making average height and width almost meaningless. There was some level of flowering all year with occasionally spectacular shows of bloom, and the plants were heavily visited by pollinators throughout the year.  There was also a tendency for individual branches or even half a plant to die between one month and the next for inscrutable reasons. (Verticillium wilt? Turkeys?) The only significant difference in growth was between the relative plant growth index for the month of October when the 40% treatment was significantly greater than the 20% treatment at p ≤ 0.1 (with 3 reps on each) using ANOVA and Tukey’s HSD (Figure 20b). While a vigorous specimen of this plant might fit into a naturalistic landscape scheme, overall we would not recommend it as a reliable landscape species in this region, since it was unpredictable and did not consistently achieve a high overall appearance rating on any irrigation treatment during the April to October time frame (Table 12).

Cluster of bees on Solanum xanti ‘Mountain Pride’ in January. Photo: SK Reid.

Growth and Quality Data

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Solanum xanti ‘Mountain Pride’ in July 2015 on the recommended 40% ET0. Photo: SK Reid.