Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Solanum silvestre
Common name
Violet Nightshade, Southern Nightshade
Family
Solanaceae
Where found
Forest, grassy areas, disturbed sites, and stream banks. Coast and ranges south from Jervis Bay.
Notes
Shrub to 2 m high. Prickles to about 10 mm long, scattered on stems, leaf stalks, leaves, flower stalks, and sometimes on calyces. Fruit fleshy. Stems densely stellate-hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), purplish. Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 5–10 cm long, 10–36 mm wide, upper surface green, sparsely stellate hairy, lower surface yellow to white, densely stellate hairy, margins entire or wavy, sometimes lobed, tips pointed, bases wedge-shaped to cordate. Juvenile leaves 6.5–14 cm long, shallowly lobed. Flowers bisexual and male, pale blue or mauve to purple, 20–40 mm in diameter, star-shaped to tubular with a broad tube and 5 lobes, in clusters of 3–10 flowers. Flowers Winter to Spring. Fruit greenish, whitish, yellow or yellowish-green, globular, 13–20 mm in diameter.
Endangered Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Solanum~silvestre (accessed 7 February, 2021)
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