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 lycocarpum
Wolf apple is a shrub or small tree from the Brazilian Cerrado, grown for its ornamental form and fruit. It needs full sun, moist but well-drained clay soil and mild temperatures.
Solanum lycocarpum, or wolf apple, is common in the Brazilian Cerrado ecoregion. In Portuguese, the plant is called lobeira (lit. 'wolf's plant') or fruta-do-lobo ('wolf's fruit').
The name "wolf's apple" comes from the fact that its fruit accounts for more than 50% of maned wolves' diet. Likewise, the scientific name "lycocarpum" is formed from Latinized Greek elements "lyco-", meaning "wolf", and "carpum" meaning "fruit".
The native range of the wolf apple tree is the Brazilian savannah, but it grows also on pastures and disturbed land, such as highway margins, in various parts of Brazil. It prefers moist, clay soil, full sun, and mild temperatures.
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 lycocarpum 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.
