Commemorating Otto Brunfels, 16th century botanist and physician
Shrubs or occasionally small trees. Leaves alternate, simple, elliptic to obovate and generally thick. Flowers terminal or axillary, clustered or solitary. Calyx tubular or bell-shaped, 5-lobed. Corolla salver-shaped, with 5 spreading lobes. Stamens 4, 2 occasionally sterile, enclosed within the flower. Ovary 2-chambered. Fruit a leathery, round to ovoid capsule.
Grown mostly in warm areas for the unusual, sometimes fragrant flowers (mostly at night) that change colour.
A revision of this genus is needed.
Softwood cuttings.
Some species have extracts of medicinal use, others have been used for the hallucinogenic alkaloids extracted from the leaves and bark.
Shrubs with flowers creamy white to violet or blue, often changing colour.
About 40 species from tropical America.
Source: (2002). Solanaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.