Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Solanum cinereum
Common name
Narrawa burr
Family
Solanaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, grassy areas, disturbed sites, often after fire, rocky areas, and stream banks. Western Slopes. ACT and Queanbeyan. Sydney area. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Shrub to 1 m high. Stems densely hairy with stellate hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), and often minute glandular hairs, becoming hairless with age. Yellow to orange prickles to 15 mm long often abundant on most parts, including the stems, leaves, and calyces. Leaves alternating up the stems, 2.5-14 cm long, 10–60 mm wide, lobed to dissected, with wavy margins, upper surface green and sparsely hairy, lower surface white or grey to pale yellow and densely stellate hairy. Flowers usually bisexual, upper flowers sometimes male. Flowers mauve-purple to blue, occasionally white, 15–35 mm in diameter, with a short wide tube and 5 lobes. Calyx lobes often linear. Flowers in 2–7-flowered clusters. Flowering: All year. Fruit fleshy, globular, 10–25 mm in diameter, pale green, often streaked or mottled white, or greenish-white; orange when mature, drying dark brown. Fruit poisonous.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
Data deficient Vic. Possibly naturalised in Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Solanum~cinereum (accessed 6 February, 2021)
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