I found these berries growing in an alley next to somebody's shed or garage or something last year at around this time (1 October) and thought they were sort of neat, so I took pictures, but then I didn't post the pictures because I didn't know what they were. I checked Wikipedia recently, and based on that, I'm pretty sure about the genus (Solanum), but there are quite a few possibilities for the species, including S. americanum, S. nigrum, and S. ptychanthum. 
I realize that it would probably be easier to make an ID if there were a picture of the leaves too. (At the time, I figured I'd be easy to identify from the berries alone and didn't think I'd need anything more than that.) If it can't be determined from these photos, does anybody at least know which of the three species in question would be most abundant in Eastern Iowa?
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Question for the Hive Mind: Solanum sp.
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7 comments:
My guess would be Solanum nigrum or ptychanthum; possibly good ol' Atropa belladonna. Hard to tell on berries alone...even potato fruits kinda resemble that.
They're too round to be belladonna. What did the flowers look like, and did it have thorns at all? (We have 3 varieties that grow wild and are trying to take over at the farm I work for, I've done a lot of research into these plants.)
But yes, while it is not a potato, tomato, or pepper plant, all three of those are related and have many similar characteristics... even petunias are related although more distantly.
Kapt'n Splash:
I don't know what the flowers looked like; I hadn't noticed the plant prior to seeing the berries. I don't believe there were thorns.
It looks like plain old black nightshade with unripe fruits. So you and Paul are both right because S. americanum, S. nigrum, and S. ptychanthum are probably all taxonomic synonyms, i.e., different names for the same species.
Could also be Solanum x burbankii, AKA wonderberry. i planted some last year, a decently useless plant and they are EVERYWHERE this year. fruit peaking about now.
wonderberry tends to be a little less upright than nigrum in my experience.
eeldip has asked the $10,000 question, the amount once offered if anyone could demonstate that "Wonderberry" was any different than black nightshade. Given the variations in this species complex, the answer seemed to be no. The purported cross to yield his hybrid doesn't work for anyone else. To read a very entertaining account of this controversy of 100 years ago get a copy of Charlie Heiser's little book, Nightshades, the Paradoxical Plants. Your assessment of wonderberry concurs with many others leading them to think Burbank was part huckster. Charlie Heiser was one of the great teacher/researchers of economic botany, an academic grandfather of mine, sort of.
Looks like the common annual weed whose fruit some workers I knew from Central America used to eat eagerly while weeding (here in Massachusetts). They believed it had medicinal properties.
Don
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