Black nightshade (Solanum nigrum)

Description: Contains several glycoalkaloid compounds that can be toxic to humans and livestock when ingested. This species is listed under Regulation No. 715 - Seed Law Implementation as a restricted noxious weed by the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

Habit: Summer annual or short-lived perennial broadleaf herb growing 0.2-1.0 m tall.

Leaves: Alternate, ovate, on short stalks, 2-8 cm long, and vary between plants from smooth-edges to shallowly lobed. Opaque, matte and dark green both above and below. Smooth or finely hairy.

Stems: Prostrate to acending or erect, herbaceous to woody or shrubby. Round to angular, smooth or sparsely hairy, green to purplish in color.

Flowers: Small, white in color, star-shaped, carried in umbels on slender stalks. Each cluster contains 5-10 flowers, 5-8 mm across with yellow centers.

Fruit and seeds: Globular, dark green in color, 5-13 mm across. Black in color when ripe containing many flattened, 1.5 mm long, finely pitted, yellow to dark brown woody seeds.

Habitat: Native to Eurasia. Can be found growing in orchards, vineyards, cro fields, pastures, gardens, yards, fields, roadsides and other disturbed sites.

Reproduction: Only by seed. Capable of producing up to 178,000 seeds per year.

Similar species: American black nightshade (S. americanum) , Hairy nightshade (S. physalifolium), Horsenettle (S. carolinense), Silverleaf nightshade (S. elaeagnifolium)

Monitoring and rapid response: Plants should be hand pulled or mechanically controled before flowering. Effectively controlled using any of several readily available general use herbicides such as dicamba, paraquat and 2,4-D.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from CABI: Invasive Species Compendium and UC IPM.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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