My colleagues from the Hort Outreach team has started to put forth a series of showy plants to herald the Lunar New Year. We noticed besides the usual pussy willows, celosias, cockscombs and peach blossoms, there is also a series of rather attractive plants that are sold as festive plants for the season. One notable group consists of plants from the Solanaceae family and they include various chillis, sweet peppers and related Solanum species.
One of the species that never failed to catch my attention is the Scarlet Eggplant which is botanically classified as a cultivar of Solanum aethiopicum. Native to tropical Africa, there is great confusion in this species of plants due to vast range of shapes and sizes of fruits and leaves and this can be easily realised by just keying in the scientific name of this cultivar into any good search engine.
There is much diversity in this species of Solanum. According to Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) , four cultivar groups of Solanum aethiopicum are recognised:
1. S. aethiopicum Gilo Group: Mature leaves covered with stellate hairs, generally not prickly; fruit subglobose to ellipsoid, 2.5–12 cm long. The fruits are consumed. This is the most important cultivar-group, which includes cultivars with smooth fruits that are popular in West and East Africa, and cultivars with more or less strongly ribbed fruits. Depending on the location, preference is given to cultivars with pure white, creamy white, pale green, dark green, brown or purple fruits, or cultivars with fruits striped in two or more colours. Cultivars of Gilo Group are grown throughout tropical Africa in the more humid areas.
2. S. aethiopicum Shum Group: Mature leaves glabrous apart from minute glandular hairs, not prickly; fruit subglobose, 1–3 cm in diameter. It is mainly a leafy vegetable, and occasionally the ripe fruits are also consumed. It is most widespread in Central Africa, popular in Cameroon and Nigeria and still more so in Uganda where it is called ‘nakati’. It is mainly found in warm, high-rainfall areas or under irrigation.
3. S. aethiopicum Kumba Group: Mature leaves glabrous apart from minute glandular hairs, not prickly; fruit depressed globose, deeply furrowed, frequently multilocular, 5–10(–15) cm broad. The fruits are consumed, as well as occasionally the leaves. Locally the same plants are used for fruits and leaves, whereas other cultivars are only used as a leafy vegetable. Cultivars of Kumba Group are mainly found in hot, semi-arid regions of the Sahel. They are frequently referred to as ‘djakattou’, ‘djakhattou’ or ‘jakhatou’ in francophone countries, but these names can also refer to cultivars of Gilo Group.
4. S. aethiopicum Aculeatum Group: Stems and leaves prickly, mature leaves covered with stellate hairs; fruit subglobose, furrowed, 3–8 cm in diameter. It is not eaten, mainly cultivated as an ornamental or as rootstock for tomato or eggplant, but not cultivated in Africa.
Medicinal applications of S. aethiopicum include the use of roots and fruits as a carminative and sedative, and to treat colic and high blood pressure; leaf juice as a sedative to treat uterine complaints; an alcoholic extract of leaves as a sedative, anti-emetic and to treat tetanus after abortion; and crushed and macerated fruits as an enema.
So what does the common scarlet eggplant we often see being put on sale belong? From what can be read above, it seems that the plant sold during Lunar New Year could either be a cultivar from the Kumba group or Aculeatum group. From what I can observe from the plant we bought, it appears to be a cultivar from the Aculeatum group, owing to its rather prickly appearance (stems and leaves) and much smaller fruit.
The scarlet eggplant is often called “Pumpkin on a Stick” and is a popular cut-flower material where the cut branches with fruits look spectacular in cut flower arrangements for a Halloween display. It is popular during Lunar New Year for its resemblence with the pumpkin which has an auspicious meaning to the Chinese.
Superficially, the scarlet eggplant plant looks like a prickly version of the common edible eggplant and bears purple star-shaped flowers with blue-green leaves that have purple veins and purple spines and stems. The fruits look like mini pumpkins and they start out green then slowly turn to orange and then to red.
This plant can be grown easily in Singapore and are best raised during the hot and dry season. Waterlogging is not tolerated. They thrive in full direct sunshine and can be grown following the cultivation regime for tomatoes and eggplants. Seeds are not easily available and I recommend harvesting some from ripened fruits that came with the store-bought plant from the festive market.
