Solanum americanum

• Botanical Name : Solanum americanum Mill.
• Synonyms : Solanum nigrum L.
• Common Name : Black Nightshade, Blackberry Nightshade, NightShade, PoisonBerry, Kangani
• Plant Family : Solanaceae
• Plant Form : Herb
• Occurrence (Sectors) : 1, 2, 22, 27, 28, 30
• Occurrence (Special Areas) : Indroda Park

About Solanum americanum Plant :

• Habit : An annual herb, unarmed, variable in appearance with stem divaricately branched, minutely puberulous or glabrous.
• Leaves : Lanceolate-ovate or ovate-elliptic, acute or obtuse at the apex, base tapering into the petiole, minutely puberulous on both sides, at length glabrous, petiolate.
• Inflorescence : Extra-axillary subumbellate cymes.
• Flowers :
  • Pedicellate, calyx 5 lobed, lobes ovate, obtuse.
  • Corolla white, tube green, limb 5-13 mm in diameter, puberulous outside, lobes oblong, acute, ovary globose, glabrous.
• Fruit : Globose, deep-red or black when ripe. Seeds spherical, flat, yellowish-brown, glabrous, microscopically rugose.
• Flowering and Fruiting Time : May - October
• Significance :
  • Roots are useful in various skin diseases.
  • Juice of the plant is applied on all sorts of swellings.
  • Whole plant is pounded with the leaves of Datura and is tied on the bubonic plague.
  • Fruits are tonic, it has been used as diuretic and diaphoretic for a long time. It is also useful in fevers and diarrhea.
  • Fruit juice is employed in hydrophobia.
  • This plant cures swellings, angina pectoris, cough, piles, and hiccup.
  • It improves voice and cures mental diseases.