Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Solanum prinophyllum
Common name
Forest nightshade, Southern forest nightshade
Family
Solanaceae
Where found
Forest and woodland, often in disturbed sites. Coast and ranges.
Notes
Annual or short-lived perennial herb or shrub to 0.5 m high, sprawling to prostrate, often purplish green. Prickles 4-14 mm long, frequent on most parts, except that there are few on the flower stalks. Young stems densely to sparsely stellate-hairy, (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), slightly sticky, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 5–14 cm long, 30–95 mm wide, deeply lobed, the lobes more or less triangular, margins toothed or further lobed, both surfaces dark green and sparsely stellate-hairy, wrinkled. Flowers lilac-blue to purple, 10–20 mm in diameter, shallowly bell-shaped with 5 lobes, in clusters of 1–6 flowers. Fruit fleshy, whitish to green, becoming purple to black, round to oval, 15–30 mm in diameter.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Solanum~prinophyllum (accessed 7 February, 2021)
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