Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, ACT

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Denise Grieg, Pilliga State Forest, NSW

Common Name

Spiny Potato-bush

Family

Solanaceae

Notes

Shrub to 1.3m tall.  Spines on the stems, the stalks and midribs of the leaves, and the flower and fruit stalks.  Leaves alternating up the stems, sometimes with 1-2 basal lobes, 2-10cm long, 2-7mm wide, flat to linear, upper surface sparsely sticky hairy, lower surface densely hairy, margins entire. Flowers white or pale blue to purple, with a very short tube and 5 (sometimes 4) lobes, solitary or in open clusters of 3-6 flowers on stems arising from the bases of the leaves.   Fruit red turning black.

Description and photo (as Solanum ferocissimum var. ferocissimum) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 594

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

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_ferocissimum.htm