Pepper relatives continued, Solanaceae - Part 2 - Black Nightshade, Solanum nigrum

I have enjoyed writing about my pepper relatives and l look forward even more too starting of the seeds. If you have not read the previous installments of pepper relatives they can be accessed here - 

1. Pepper relatives - Tomato, Potato and Aubergine
2. Pepper relatives - Black nightshade - Solanum nigrum
3. Pepper relatives - Other Solanum sp.
4. Pepper relatives - Non-solanum Solonaceae

Black Nightshade Solanum nigrum

The next species of pepper relative I have collected is Solanum nigrum. Black nightshade, a native of Eurasia, is thought off by most as a poisonous plant. Some of this lies down to the confusion between it and deadly nightshade Atropa Belladonna, a more poisonous distant relative member of the Solanaceae family not belonging to solanum. The uncooked leaves and unripe fruit of solanum nigrum are poisonous, However the cooked leaves and ripe fruits are eaten in many cultures. Cultivated forms have less of the toxins and ripe fruit from these are can be eaten by most people. There are also cultivators listed under different names like solanum melanocerasum (Garden huckleberry) which most people class either as a cultivated form of solanum nigrum or at least a very close relatives belonging to the same group.

Solanum nigrum? self collected - On a recent trip to my dads new house I collected several plants which I think are solonum nigrum. They could be self seeded plants from a previous gardeners cultivated plants or perhaps more likely seeds dropped by birds. I collected several plants which definitely look like all the photos I have seen of wild solonum nigrum. The plants look similar to capsicum if a bit more "weedy". The flowers are small and white with bright yellow anthers. The flowers are similar to Solanum pseudocapsicum (another plant I have and will cover later). The fruits are very small and green at the moment, although I saw some ripe purple berries on plants in the same flower bed. The fruits look like tiny berries although they do bare a resemblance to tiny chilli peppers.

Solanum nigrum? self collected

Garden huckleberry solanum melanocerasum - An old variety that seems to be a larger fruited cultivated form of solanum nigrum. The ripe purple fruits are often used to make jams.  I have got seeds for these and will start a couple of plants off in the spring.

Blackberries (Schwartzenbeeren) Solanum nigrum - A variety I found on the american seed site - www.rareseeds.com. It is said to be an old German variety introduced to America by German immigrants in about 1875.

Chichiquelite huckleberry Solanum nigrum - Another variety I got from the same site. I have also read of other people on gardening forums growing. Another selected cultivator with purple berries originating from Chichiquelite, Mexico.

Otricoli Orange berry Solanum nigrum - It was this variety that lead me to the above site. Having read about it elsewhere, I was searching for reliable seeds. This variety has the same growth habit and flowers as other nigrum varieties but with bright orange berries. It was found Italy in the ancient roman site of Ocriculum, growing along a river bank among the ordinary purple berried variety.

Wonderberry/Sunberry Solanum burbankii - This variety, developed by Luther Burbank to be a sweeter, larger fruited garden huckleberry. Thought to be a hybrid of the standard garden huckleberry with one of the species or varieties within the nigrum group.

That is all for now but keep a look out for another pepper relatives installment I still have lots more species/varieties to cover, Who knows where I am going to put them all next year.