Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Solanum stelligerum

Flowering and fruiting stems. Photographer Don Wood, north of Central Tilba

Flower, ripe fruit, and leaves. Photographer Jackie Miles

Leaves and young fruit. Photographer Jackie Miles

Flowering plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Meroo Lake south of Ulladulla

Common name

Devil's needles

Family

Solanaceae

Where found

Forest and dunes. Coast and ranges.

Notes

Shrub to 2.5 m high, sparingly clonal. Prickles to 12 mm long, sparse, usually scattered on the branches, few or absent on the leaves, absent elsewhere. Fruit fleshy. Stems densely stellate-hairy (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), yellow to brown. Leaves alternating up the stems, 2–14 cm long, 9–45 mm wide, upper surface green and sparsely hairy or hairless, lower surface yellowish or rusty stellate-hairy, margins entire, irregularly toothed, wavy, or shallowly lobed. Flowers mostly bisexual, sometimes male, white, mauve, or purple, 15–25 mm in diameter, star-shaped with 5 lobes, in 1–10-flowered clusters. Flowering: chiefly spring–summer. Fruit red, round, 5–10 mm in diameter.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Solanum~stelligerum (accessed 7 February, 2021)