Solanum is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, which include three food crops of high economic importance: the potato, the tomato and the eggplant. It is the largest genus in the nightshade family Solanaceae, comprising around 1,500 species. It also contains the so-called horse nettles, as well as numerous plants cultivated for their ornamental flowers and fruit.
Solanum mauritianum is a small tree or shrub native to South America, including Northern Argentina, Southern Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Its common names include earleaf nightshade, woolly nightshade, flannel weed, bugweed, tobacco weed, tobacco bush, wild tobacco and kerosene plant.
Solanum pseudocapsicum is a nightshade species with mildly poisonous fruit. It is commonly known as the Jerusalem cherry, Madeira winter cherry, or, ambiguously, "winter cherry". These perennials can be grown decoratively as house plants, but in some areas of South Africa, India, Australia and New Zealand it is regarded as a weed.
Cyphomandra was a formerly accepted genus in the plant family Solanaceae. It used to contain about 35 species native to the Americas from Mexico southwards to Northern Argentina.
Solanum aculeastrum is commonly known as soda apple, sodaapple nightshade, goat apple, poison apple, or more ambiguously as "bitter-apple". It is a poisonous nightshade species from Africa and not related to true apples. The term "soda apple" probably derives from "Sodom apple", modified due to the fruit's detergent properties.
The cherry tomato is a type of small round tomato believed to be an intermediate genetic admixture between wild currant-type tomatoes and domesticated garden tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from a thumbtip up to the size of a golf ball, and can range from spherical to slightly oblong in shape. Although usually red, other colours such as orange, yellow, green, purple, and black also exist. Those shaped like an oblong share characteristics with plum tomatoes and are known as grape tomatoes. The cherry tomato is regarded as a botanical variety of the cultivated berry, Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme.
Solanum linnaeanum is a nightshade species known as devil's apple and, in some places where it is introduced, apple of Sodom. The latter name is also used for other nightshades and entirely different plants elsewhere, in particular the poisonous milkweed Calotropis procera.
Solanum elaeagnifolium, the silverleaf nightshade or silver-leaved nightshade, is a common native plant to parts of the southwestern USA, and sometimes weed of western North America and also found in South America. Other common names include prairie berry, silverleaf nettle, white horsenettle or silver nightshade. In South Africa it is known as silver-leaf bitter-apple or satansbos. More ambiguous names include "bull-nettle", "horsenettle" and the Spanish "trompillo". The plant is also endemic to the Middle East.
Solanum pimpinellifolium, commonly known as the currant tomato or pimp, is a wild species of tomato native to Ecuador and Peru but naturalized elsewhere, such as the Galápagos Islands. Its small fruits are edible, and it is commonly grown in gardens as an heirloom tomato, although it is considered to be wild rather than domesticated as is the commonly cultivated tomato species Solanum lycopersicum. Its genome was sequenced in 2012.
Lycianthes is a genus of plants from the nightshade family (Solanaceae), found in both the Old World and the New World, but predominantly in the latter. It contains roughly 150 species, mostly from tropical America, with 35-40 species in Asia and the Pacific.
Solanum paniculatum, commonly known as jurubeba, is a nightshade common in almost all of Brazil. It is used as a medicinal plant and has a bitter taste.
Solanum lanceolatum, with the common names orangeberry nightshade and lanceleaf nightshade, is a species of nightshade. It is native to regions of South America, including the Cerrado ecoregion of the Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, primarily in Brazil.
Tomatine is a glycoalkaloid, found in the stems and leaves of tomato plants, and in the fruits at much lower concentrations. Chemically pure tomatine is a white crystalline solid at standard temperature and pressure.
Solanum chilense is a plant species from the "tomato" subgenus Lycopersicon within the nightshade genus Solanum.
Solanum huaylasense is a species of plant in the family Solanaceae. It is endemic to Peru.
Solanum arcanum is a species of nightshade, commonly called the "wild tomato," endemic to Peru.
Solanum peruvianum is a species of wild tomato in the family Solanaceae. It is native to the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, Peru, and northern Chile, and has been introduced to California. Some authorities consider it to be a member of a species complex, with the other members being Solanum corneliomuelleri, Solanum huaylasense, and Solanum arcanum.
Solanum habrochaites, the hairy tomato, is a species of flowering plant in the family Solanaceae, native to Ecuador and Peru. It is considered to be one of the most important sources of genetic variation for crop improvement of the cultivated tomato, Solanum lycopersicum.
