DescriptionLatua pubiflora single damaged fruit Logan Botanic Garden.jpg
English: A single, yellow, tomato-like fruit borne by a mature specimen of Latua pubiflora (Griseb.) Baillon (family : Solanaceae). Ripe fruit has several holes and is coated with several specks of frass : evidence of damage caused by feeding of insects and/or molluscs upon the flesh. Note also inquisitive ant just visible among the dark brown seeds revealed by the hole visible in shot : possible evidence that ants might play a role in the dispersal of seeds of this plant in the wild.
Fruit (berry) borne by a large and healthy specimen (over 3m in height) of this rare shrub/small tree endemic to Chile, growing in Logan Botanic Garden in the Rhins of Galloway, Wigtownshire, Scotland (14 miles south of Stranraer). Fruit appeared to be the only one produced by the plant in 2019. Plant pollinated by hummingbirds in the wild - which absent from Scotland. Logan curator Richard Baines has, however noted the presence at Logan of the Hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum), an insect with a proboscis long enough to pollinate Latua flowers (although such pollination has not yet been observed to occur). Latua specimen at Logan thriving better than main specimen at Edinburgh Botanic Garden (which set no fruit at all in 2019) - thanks to Logan's warmer, wetter climate (similar to that of the region of Chile to which Latua endemic). Furthermore, seven year-old plant at Logan may well be largest specimen of Latua pubiflora currently growing anywhere in the British Isles, although this has yet to be confirmed.
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