Turkey Berry

The young fruits are edible after cooking and are used medicinally for improving eyesight; the leaves are used for treating skin diseases.

According to Chopra (Gloss. Ind. Med. Pl. 230. 1956) the fruits are used for spleenic trouble.

Shrubs 1-2(-3) m tall, sparingly armed, densely pubescent overall with many-rayed, grayish stellate hairs. Stems with stout, recurved, reddish or pale-yellow prickles 2.5-10 × 2-10 mm and sometimes bearing basal stellate hairs. Leaves solitary or paired; petiole 2-4 cm; leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 6-16(-19) × 4-11(-13) cm, with yellow, many-branched stellate hairs, armed or unarmed, base cordate or cuneate, margin sinuate or usually 5-7-lobed, apex acute. Inflorescences extra-axillary, many-flowered racemose panicles; peduncle mostly 1- or 2-branched, 1-1.8 cm, stellate pubescent. Flowers andromonoecious. Pedicel dark, slender, 5-12 mm, bearing simple glandular hairs and stalked stellate hairs. Calyx cup-shaped, 4-5 mm, pubescence as on pedicel; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 mm. Corolla white, rotate, 1-1.3 × 1-1.5 cm; lobes ovate-lanceolate, 8-10 mm, stellate pubescent abaxially. Filaments ca. 1 mm; anthers 4-7 mm. Style 6-8 mm. Fruiting pedicel 1-2 cm, thickened upwards, with sparse stellate and simple glandular hairs. Fruiting calyx ca. 1.5 cm. Berry yellow, smooth, glabrous, 1-1.5 cm in diam. Seeds discoid, 1.5-2 mm in diam. Fl. and fr. throughout the year.

A shrub 120-170 cm or more tall. Stem and branches sparsely prickly, stellate tomentose. Leaves 9-13 x 5-10.5 cm, ovate-sinuate, stellately pubescent tomentose. Flowers pale white, in compact paniculate cymes. Peduncles stout, 10-40 mm long. Calyx pubescent. Berry globose, 8-12 mm broad, yellow. Seeds c. 2 mm broad.

West Indies, widely naturalised elsewhere.

Fujian (Xiamen Shi), Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, S Xizang, Yunnan [native of the Caribbean, widely naturalized in tropical regions]

Distribution: Native to W. Indies, widely naturalised in S. & S. E. Asia.

250-750 m

Fl. Per.: April-May.

Roadsides, wastelands, ravines, valleys, thickets, wet places near villages; 200-2000 m.