''Solanum scabrum'', also known as garden huckleberry, is an annual or perennial plant in the

nightshade The Solanaceae , or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and orna ...

family. The geographic origin of the species is uncertain;

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, t ...

attributed it to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, but it also occurs in North America, and it is

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the i ...

in many countries. In Africa it is cultivated as a leaf vegetable and for dye from the berries.Manoko,M.L.K.,van den Berg,R.G., Feron,R.M.C.,van der Weerden,G.M., Mariani,C.
Genetic diversity of the African hexaploid species Solanum scabrum Mill. and Solanum nigrum L. (Solanaceae)
''Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution,'' Volume 55, Number 3, 409-418.

Description

An annual or short-lived perennial herb to 1 m tall, hairless or sparsely hairy. The leaves are usually ovate, 7–12 cm long and 5–8 cm wide, with petioles 1.5–7 cm long. The inflorescence is simple or sometimes branched with 9–12 flowers. The white

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name * Corolla (headgear), an ancient headdress in the form of a circlet or crown * ''Corolla'' (gastropod), a genus of moll ...

stellate Stellate, meaning star-shaped, may refer to: * Stellate cell * Stellate ganglion * Stellate reticulum * Stellate veins * Stellate trichomes (hairs) on plants * Stellate laceration or incision Wound#Open * Stellate fan-shaped Espalier (one form ...

, 15–20 mm diam., and sometimes tinged purple and with yellow/green basal star. The berries are globular, 10–17 mm diam., purple-black. The seeds are 1.8–2.2 mm long, pale or stained purple.Factsheet ''Solanum scabrum'', Flora of South Australia
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Food

''Solanum scabrum'' is grown as an edible leaf crop in Africa. It is the most intensively cultivated species for leaf cropping within the ''Solanum nigrum'' complex, and as such has undergone genetic selection by farmers for leaf size and other characteristics. Njama njama is a

Cameroonian cuisine Cameroonian cuisine (French: cuisine camerounaise) is one of the most varied in Africa due to Cameroon's location on the crossroads between the north, west, and center of the continent; the diversity in ethnicity with mixture ranging from Ban ...

dish made with the leaves.

Dye

In Africa a stocky form of ''Solanum scabrum'' is cultivated as a dye crop using the ripe berries.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q24853233 scabrum Taxa named by Philip Miller