The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Solanum erianthum
Also called China Flowerleaf, Mullein Nightshade, Big Eggplant, Flannelbush, Potato Tree, Tobacco Tree, Velvet Nightshade
Potatotree (Solanum erianthum) is a fast-growing evergreen shrub or small tree from the nightshade family, usually 2 to 8 m tall, native to warm parts of the Americas and now grown across many tropical regions. Give it warm, frost-free conditions and plenty of sun, and treat it as a tropical plant.
Solanum erianthum is a species of nightshade that is native to southern North America and northern South America. It has been introduced to other parts of the world and has a nearly pantropical distribution. Common names include mullein nightshade (that may also refer to S. donianum), velvet nightshade, and salvadora.
Solanum erianthum is native to the southernmost parts of the contiguous United States (southern Florida and the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas), the Bahamas, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America, including the Galápagos Islands. It is believed that Spanish explorers introduced Potato Tree to the Philippines in the 16th century, and from there it spread to Malesia, Australia, and the Asian mainland. It was probably introduced to West Africa from the Caribbean via the Atlantic slave trade. It is not found in most of South America.
Like other species in its genus, S. erianthum has a number of ethnobotanical and pharmaceutical uses. This is due to the presence of steroidal saponins, free genins, and steroidal alkaloids of the spirosolane group, such as solasodine and tomatidine. Alkaloids account for around 0.4% of the mass of dry berries and leaves. Steroidal alkaloids found in the plant are used by the pharmaceutical industry as precursors for the manufacture of synthetic steroids.
Dwarf Tamarillo · Solanum acaule · Sodaapple nightshade · Ethiopian nightshade · American black nightshade · Solanum arcanum · New Zealand nightshade · Solanum berthaultii · Tamarillo · Solanum brevicaule · Solanum cajanumense · Bitter Apple
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Solanum erianthum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
