Garden Corner - Tomatoes - The Nightshade Family

Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and a host of other important fruit crops all belong to the Solanaceae Buffalo Bur

plant family. But so do mandrakes, daturas and other poisonous and important medicinal plants.

The name nightshade is commonly restricted to members of the Solanum family.

The plants are characterized by white or purplish star-shaped flowers and decorative usually orange berries.

Among the better known species are the bittersweet , or woody nightshade ( S. dulcamara ), the buffalo bur ( S. rostratum ), the horse, or bull, nettle ( S. carolinense ), the Jerusalem cherry ( S. pseudocapsicum ), and the black nightshade ( S. niger ).

The buffalo bur, originally native to the Western plains, and the horse nettle, native to the Southeast, are straggly, prickly plants which are now naturalized over most of the United States and often become pests.

The berries of the horse nettle (not a true nettle botanically) have been used medicinally.

Leaves of the buffalo bur served as food for the Colorado potato beetle before the advent of the cultivated potato in its vicinity.
Both plants are sometimes called sandbur , properly the name for a prickly grass.

The Jerusalem cherry, probably of Old World origin, is a house plant popular for its scarlet berries.

The black nightshade was named for the dull black color of its berries, unusual for the genus; it is native to Europe but naturalized throughout the United States, where it is now one of the most common species of Solanum found growing wild.

Because its leaves may be poisonous, it is sometimes called deadly nightshade, properly the name for the belladonna, which is not found wild in America.