Nolana is a genus of hard annual

Annual plant

An annual plant is a plant that usually germinates, flowers, and dies in a year or season. True annuals will only live longer than a year if they are prevented from setting seed...

 or perennial plant

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

s in the Nightshade

Solanaceae

Solanaceae are a family of flowering plants that include a number of important agricultural crops as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear...

 family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

, which is native of costal areas in Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

.

Classification

There are a number of synonyms for Nolana: Alibrexia, Aplocarya, Bargemontia, Dolia, Gubleria, Leloutrea, Neudorfia, Osteocarpus, Pachysolen, Periloba, Rayera, Sorema, Teganium, Tula, Velpeaulia, Walberia, and Zwingera.

Nolana is the only genus in the Solanaceae which has a fruit composed of mericarps

Schizocarp

A schizocarp is a dry fruit that develops from multiple carpels. When mature it splits up into mericarps. Mericarps are often 1-seeded as in, for example, Malva, Malvastrum, and Sida...

, although its flower and other vegetative morphology is similar to other plants in this family. It seems to be most closely related to Lycium and Grabowskia

Grabowskia

Grabowskia is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae.-Selected species:* Grabowskia ameghinoi Speg.* Grabowskia glauca I.M.Johnst.* Grabowskia lindleyi Sendtn.* Grabowskia megalosperma Speg....

.

Select species included

• Nolana acuminata
• Nolana tenella
• Nolana atriplicifolia
• Nolana crassulifolia
• Nolana humifusa
• Nolana prostrata
• Nolana rupicola
• Nolana sedifolia

External links

• Nolana
• Nolana supplement from Michael O. Dillon & Jun Wen of the Field Museum, Chicago, IL. Includes photos of flowers and fruit.