Flowers. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Fruit. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Flowers, fruits, and leaves. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Shrub. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Common Name

Oondoroo; Kangaroo Apple

Family

Solanaceae

Notes

Shrub to 2m tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, 3-19cm long, 10-90mm wide, flat, hairless. Juvenile leaves with 2-4 shallow lobes toward the base, later leaves usually with entire edges.  Flowers purple or violet to mauve, tubular, with five lobes, in groups of 1-12 flowers on stalks arising from the bases of the leaves.  Ripe fruit marbled green to pale cream, sometimes tinged purple, slightly translucent and aromatic. Germinates after fire.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 589

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Solanum~simile

Online fact sheet published by the South Australian Herbarium:  http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/efsa/lucid/Solanaceae/Solanum%20species/key/Australian%20Solanum%20species/Media/Html/Solanum_simile.htm