Nightshade Family:-

Nightshade Family plant table with its Common Name - Botanical Name. Flowering Months Range. Habitat with link to that Loosestrife to Olive Wild Flower Families Gallery:-

Common Name

Botanical Name

Flowering Months

Habitat

Bittersweet

Solanum dulcamara

June-September

A scrambling, woody perennial growing in woodland, thickets, hedgerows, ditches, and, as var. marinum, on shingle beaches. It often grows in moist habitats and is common in swamps and tall-herb fens, and beside rivers and lakes, where it can even grow in shallow water. Lowland.

Flower

Flowers

Foliage

Mature Berry

Black Nightshade

Solanum nigrum

July-September

An annual weed of cultivated and waste land, especially where the soil is nutrient-rich. Lowland.

Fruit

Flowers

Foliage from Rochester in Kent

Form

Deadly Nightshade

Atropa bella-donna

May-August

A robust rhizomatous perennial herb of dry disturbed ground, field margins, hedgerows and open woodland. It is native only on calcareous soils, particularly those overlying chalk, but it occurs on a wider range of soils as an alien, where it is often a relic of cultivation as a medicinal herb. Reproduction is mainly by bird-distributed seed. Lowland.

Flower from Burham in Kent

Fruit from Saint Margaret's Bay on 5 August

Foliage, Flower and Juvenile Fruit from Saint Margaret's Bay on 5 August

Form from Trosely in Kent in August

Duke of Argyll's Tea-Tree

Lycium halimifolium

(Lycium barbarum)

June-September

The two supposed species of Lycium in our area (L. barbarum and L. chinense) are suckering, deciduous, spiny shrubs which are grown as hedges, particularly in coastal areas. Both grow readily from bird-distributed seed and become established on shingle, waste land, hedge banks and walls.

Flower from Cuxton in Kent on 28 July

Flowers

Foliage on 10 August

Form on 10 August

Green Nightshade

(Leafy-fruited Nighshade)

Solanum sarachoides

July-September

An erect or decumbent annual, found as a casual on cultivated ground, rubbish tips and waste ground. Rarely, it becomes naturalised. Lowland.

Flower from Upnor in Kent in August

Flowers from Upnor in August

Foliage

Form

Henbane

Hyoscyamus niger

June-August

A biennial herb of dry, calcareous soils, particularly those overlying chalk, and on coastal sandhills, sandy open areas and waste ground. It prefers disturbed ground, including rabbit warrens and building sites. Lowland.

Flower

Flowers

Foliage from Thaxted in Essex

Form from Thaxted in Essex

Thorn-Apple

Datura stramonium

July till the frosts

An annual of waste ground, rubbish tips, cultivated and disturbed ground. Most populations are casual, but the species can become naturalised, or reappear after long periods from dormant seeds. It most frequently arises as a garden escape or from bird-seed, but also from oil-seed and grain. Lowland.

Fruit

Fruit from Rochester in Kent

Foliage

Form from Rochester in Kent