Solanum elaeagnifolium – Silverleaf Nightshade

Solanum elaeagnifolium - Silverleaf Nightshade, Purple Nightshade, White Horsenettle, Tomato Weed, Trompillo (flower)

Solanum elaeagnifolium - Silverleaf Nightshade, Purple Nightshade, White Horsenettle, Tomato Weed, Trompillo (fruit)

Solanum elaeagnifolium - Silverleaf Nightshade, Purple Nightshade, White Horsenettle, Tomato Weed, Trompillo

Plant Name

Scientific Name: Solanum elaeagnifolium

Common Names: Silverleaf Nightshade, Purple Nightshade, White Horsenettle, Tomato Weed, Trompillo

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial

Growth Habit: Subshrub, Herb/Forb

Arizona Native Status: Native

Habitat: Desert, Upland. This prickly weed is most common in highly disturbed areas like at the edge of fields and in overgrazed pastures, drainage ditches, and vacant lots.

Flower Color: Purple to violet-blue, White (rare)

Flowering Season: Spring, Summer, Fall

Height: To 3 feet (91 cm) tall

Description: The flowers are 1 inch (2.5 cm) across and have 5 ruffled, wrinkled lobes and 5 non-fused stamens. The flowers are followed by round, green ripening to yellow fruit. The ripe fruits look very much like small yellow cherry tomatoes. The leaves have wavy edges and are alternate, silvery green in color, leathery, hairy, and oblong to lance-shaped. The stems are spiny.

Special Characteristics

Poisonous – The plants, especially the leaves and green, unripe, cherry tomato-like fruit, are poisonous and contain the glycoalkaloid solanine as well as the tropane alkaloids scopolamine (hyoscine) and hyoscyamine (an isomer of atropine).

Classification

Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Solanales
Family: Solanaceae – Potato family
Genus: Solanum L. – nightshade
Species: Solanum elaeagnifolium Cav. – silverleaf nightshade

More About This Plant

Arizona County Distribution Map