The Nightshade Family or Solanaceae and its many uses

Attractive hedge plant from the Solanaceae: Lycium barbarum or Duke of Argyll’s Teaplant with young and old flowers (by Matt Summers)

The Solanaceae or Nightshade family is a family with edible as well as poisonous members. It is therefor a fascinating one with 11 genera described in Stace of which many are neophytes.

Neophytes were introduced to these shores after the discovery of the New World in c.1550 on purpose as an ornamental or food plant. But many are also arrived accidently through wool shoddy, and in more recent years with oil-seed, bird-seed and agricultural seed.

Extract from PDF all about Wool Shoddy:

“On enquiry he found that wool waste (“shoddy”) was unloaded at the sidings and delivered to local farmers for use as a manure, and when this was followed up foreign weeds were found to be plentiful in their fields. By 1952 he had found 112 species of wool aliens in Bedfordshire (Dony, 1953) and was in touch with the firms near Bradford that despatched the “shoddy” -in that year he went to Yorkshire and in Bradford, Morley, Heckmondwike and Kirkheaton found over 40 species.”

The Wild Flower Key describes just the 5 best-known species in the Nightshade Family:

  • Lycium barbarum or Duke of Argyll’s Teaplant
  • Datura stramonium or Thorn-apple
  • Hyoscyamus niger or Henbane
  • Solanum dulcamara or Bittersweet
  • Solanum nigrum or Black Nightshade
  • Atropa belladonna or Deadly Nightshade
The 5 best-known Solanacea on Plate 61 from ‘The Concise British Flora in Colour’ by W. Keble-Martin

Pictures with gratitude from Mike Poulton, Matt Summers and Wikipedia Commons. FBBC added behind the common name below in the contents when the plant is described in the Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country.

Warning:

Please note that this is an educational blog and not a guide for medicinal use. All plants in this family are poisonous!! Many poisonous plants are however also often employed as medicine in a much reduced amount of course.

Contents

Lycium barbarum or Duke of Argyll’s Teaplant FBBC

  • L. chinense or Chinese Teaplant FBBC

Atropa belladonna or Deadly Nightshade FBBC

Hyoscyamus niger or Henbane FBBC

Nicandra physalodes or Apple-of-Peru FBBC

Datura stramonium or Thorn-apple FBBC

  • D. ferox or Longspine Thorn-apple FBBC

Salpichroa origanifolia or Cock’s-eggs FBBC

Alkekengi officinarum or Japanese-lantern FBBC

  • P. peruviana or Cape-gooseberry FBBC
  • P. ixocarpa or Tomatillo
  • P. philadelphica or Large-flowered Tomatillo
  • P. pubescens
  • P. angulata

Capsicum annuum or Sweet Pepper

Solanum spp

  • Solanum nigrum or Black Nightshade FBBC and
  • Ssp. nigrum + Ssp. schultesii
  • S. villosum or Red Nightshade
  • S. scabrum or Garden Huckleberry
  • S. chenopodioides or Tall Nightshade

S. nitidibaccatum (syn S. physalifolium) or Green Nightshade FBBC

  • S. sarrachoides or Leafy-fruited Nightshade
  • S. triflorum or Small Nightshade

S. dulcamara or Bittersweet FBBC

  • S. tuberosum or Potato FBBC
  • S. lycopersicum or Tomato FBBC
  • S. laciniatum or Kangaroo-apple
  • S. carolinense or Horse-nettle
  • S. sisymbrifolium or Red Buffulo-bur

S. rostratum or Buffulo-bur FBBC

  • S. chacoense or Chaco Potato and locally known as ‘Jack Hawkes’ Potato FBBC
  • S. nitidibaccatum
  • S. pseudocapsicum

Nicotiana rustica or Wild Tobacco

  • N. sylvestris or Argentine Tobacco FBBC
  • N. tabacum or Tobacco
  • N. alba or Sweet Tobacco
  • N. x sanderea or Garden Tobacco FBBC
  • N. forgetiana or Red Tobacco

Petunia x hybrida or Petunia FBBC

Continue reading “The Nightshade Family or Solanaceae and its many uses”

The Wonderful Weed Weekly Blog

To talk kindly about the weeds in my weekly blog, we first need to identify those weeds of which many people despise…!

I found the RHS website very useful please see here as well as how to tackle them.

I don’t really want to repeat what this brilliant website says, as my weekly blog wants to highlight the positive things about those weeds!

Weeds are also just being ‘themselves’; one of the many native plants of these Isles! They grow in soil and habitat in which they naturally like to grow in and often we are actually helping them greatly by providing a pleasant environment to thrive even more!

Continue reading “The Wonderful Weed Weekly Blog”

LOVE YOUR WEEDS!

In the last blog I explained some scientific terms which you will find throughout my blogs. This time I explain a little more why I want to start a blog all about Ethnobotany and our native plants..

The more I work with all kinds of plants, in my daily life and work, the more I appreciate them, and this even includes ‘WEEDS’, or our native plants as I prefer to call them; or even wild flowers as many are pretty as well as useful…. Or ‘PRETTY USEFUL’!!

Crambe maritima or Sea kale looking stunning in its native habitat!


Continue reading “LOVE YOUR WEEDS!”

Chapter 1: Some difficult terms explained in the world of Botany, Ethnobotany and even Horticulture.

As I wrote in a recent blog, I would like to re edit most of the last year’s blogs as we now have the Gutenberg editing and this makes the blogs more beautiful and pleasant to read!

As in any science there are some difficult words and terms used of which I would like to explain some this week.

If not explained you will often find a link on the ‘difficult’ word which will guide you to an explanatory page.

Continue reading “Chapter 1: Some difficult terms explained in the world of Botany, Ethnobotany and even Horticulture.”

The Poppy and its family (Part 1)

Papaver rhoeas in bean field – Lodge Lane, Kingswinford (picture by Mike Poulton)

This week I’d like to talk about the Common Poppy or Papaver rhoeas, which is a symbol in Britain for the millions of casualties in the First World War and since.

It belongs to the  Papaveraceae or Poppy family which is number 34 in Stace.

This weekend we will have Remembrance Sunday here  which is always the nearest Sunday to Armistice * Day (on 11-11). This was signed at 5 am on the 11th November, 1918 to be precise but all the fighting ceased at 11 am, so exactly 100 years ago!

*Armistice means: a Ceasefire or suspension of hostilities or also an agreement made by opposing sites to stop fighting for a certain time or a truce.

Papaver, also ‘pappa’, is the Latin word for food or milk and ‘rhoeas’ means red in Greek.

Contents:

Papaver cambricum or Welsh Poppy
Papaver spp.

* Edible uses:   * Medicinal uses: * Other uses:

Papaver somniferum or Opium Poppy
Continue reading “The Poppy and its family (Part 1)”

Introduction to My Wonderful Weeds Blog

To talk kindly about the weeds in my blog, we first need to identify those weeds of which many people despise…!

Common Ragwort is despised by horse owners in particular but lots of wildlife, including this house sparrow is depending on it! See more in this post. (Picture by Matt Summers)

A useful place to find this information is on the RHS website please see here. You can also find out how to tackle them. It mentions over 20 most troublesome weeds, for which I will hope to do a write up in the coming weeks.

Continue reading “Introduction to My Wonderful Weeds Blog”