Black nightshade has been in the news recently, after its berries turned up masquerading as peas in packs of frozen vegetables.
Black nightshade is regularly confused with deadly nightshade. Indeed, the picture in the above news story appears to be of deadly nightshade, although it is labelled black nightshade. Fortunately, deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) is quite rare in New Zealand, only occurring in the wild in Canterbury. Black nightshade is thought to be no where near as toxic as deadly nightshade. Nevertheless, I suspect no-one would recommend it for human consumption.
Black nightshade belongs to the genus Solanum, which also includes tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) and potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)!
Black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) is easily confused with small-flowered nightshade (Solanum nodiflorum, previously known in New Zealand as Solanum americanum). The former is introduced to New Zealand; the latter is thought to be native. They differ in chromosome numbers, but appear very similar externally. Barry Sneddon, one of the Botany Collection Managers, and I have been learning how to distinguish them.
Flora of New Zealand Volume 4 suggests that in:
Solanum nodiflorum (previously known in New Zealand as Solanum americanum)
* the calyx is strongly reflexed at fruiting.
* the flowers/fruit in a particular group all branch from more or less the same point.
* stone cells are evident in the fruit.
Solanum nigrum
* the calyx is not or only partially reflexed at fruiting.
* some flowers/fruit in a particular group clearly branch below the others.
* stone cells are usually absent in the fruit.
From this, it appears that the plants in my garden are actually the native Solanum nodiflorum. Which, as a lover of native plants, is a good thing, I suppose. But they still look weedy…
Te Papa has a specimen collected during Captain Cook’s first expedition that has been labelled as Solanum nigrum; however, this would seem to be a mis-identification.
I meant with not woth
According to the NVS and image records, atropa bella-donna more commonly known as atropa belladonna is not only found in cantebury woth only 1 record I could find, so please comment the sources for information.
Hi everyone, we used to cook the leaves of the black nightshade since i was a kid in the Mountain Province of Benguet Philippines. We call it “amte” in our dialect. Lots of them grow almost everywhere in Benguet and people often eat them with their soup, meat, legumes and fish. Before you can just harvest them everywhere, lately i can see them being sold at the markets. This plant also grows somewhere in the Southern region particulary in North Cotabao and they add these weeds on their legume soups or just saute it with salt and garlic. I went here in Spain to work and i also find black nightshades here during late spring and the whole summertime. I happily forage some with my friends and saute them with salt and garlic
Kia Ora, I ate maybe three to four massive handfuls of the leaves last night with my chicken “moa”. Maori call it Poro and Niueans call it Polo. I’ve eaten this with my mum, Nan and aunty since I was a child. We would cook the leaves with meats, It’s delicious. I beleive when the early UK settlers came to NZ they miss identified it and thought it was deadly NS and most Maori overtime forgot that this was a big part of their diet but all over the world indigenous people eat the berries and the leaves as it grows like a weed in heaps of parts of the world.
I’ve been thinking of foraging this plants but hesitate as some articles like this one and one from Massey don’t clearly state that they’re edible. I’m from Indonesia and I believe that this is what we called Leunca in one of our native language (Sundanese). We eat it just like that as salad or sides.
Hi there I read your article with interest. What I want to know is what if any, beneficial bugs are attracted to black nightshade. Bugs like lady bugs, paracitic wasp or hover fly? I realise the last post was ten years ago but I’m hoping this blog is still live as I am having peculiar trouble finding any information on what bugs might be attracted to the nightshade.
Hello hope to bring you back to this page ! So I just found Black Nightshade in my yard only one growing in the hot dirt below a huge tree I live on native land in a town called coarsegold where one of the big gold rushes were and indigenous natives thrived , and I have never in my life seen this plant before in person growing up as a child as well… I am caring for it and will be using it properly im not one to deny what’s been given to me by nature and the universe there’s so much a significance behind why I believe it was placed there and how it even got there is beyond me but let’s say I’ve been dreaming in my days to find something so cool and wild in my yard that I can consume and if I do get sick I’ll be fine I been through worse. I want to say that when I found it it had bites taken from it a caterpillar definitely and it laid eggs before died there was no bug anywhere near it I am doing more research atm I’m hoping to make a tea from it eventually and keep it alive as long as I can such a beautiful day this was and I wasn’t even going to go outside ! But I had to water the plants; nourish nature!
Since a young child I have eaten literally thousands of these tasty berries. I have even made jam and heard of someone making wine with them. People look on horrified when I pick and consume them in public and offer the berries to my kids (black ripe berries of course)
Maori friends boil up the new leaves and refer to it as Poroporo which is interesting as for a long time I always thought that was the Maori name for kangaroo apple (Solanum laciniatum or Solanum aviculare) but it seems Poroporo also applies to Black knightshade. A Poroporo boilup of (Solanum laciniatum or Solanum aviculare) would be a very bad idea as these leaves contain steroidal alkaloids and are extremely toxic.
How do i get this plant pls?
kiaora i have eaten black nightshade since i was born mum used to gather it with fat-hen and prince of wales.When our children are babies we cook kamokamo with the kamokamo ends, well i suppose you would call them tendrils, maori call them wenewene, we boil them with the above mentioned plants and meat, mutton or pork. boil the meat until its soft then add the other ingredients and give them a good boil too. You can also throw your spuds all in the same pot When it was cooked, mother would fish out the greens, mash them with a little butter, and that was babies first solid food. The berries we used to eat them straight off the plant, just sit there and eat them. Some times we used to take a jar with us with powder milk in it, a throw the berries into the jar give them a bit of a mash and eat them. The maori name for black nightshade is poroporo, and out of those above mentioned plants, it was the only one that had a maori name, so i would assume its native to Aotearoa (New Zealand).
I have grown solanum nigrum in California and in NZ near Whakatane. We regularly eat the very black berries and they are excellent cooked in mixed berry pies. I normally mix with plum, raspberry and blueberry, or I add them to raspberry jam when cooking that. The green berries are not edible but are excellent when applied to superficial actinic keratoses. The lesions will disappear if the berries are regularly applied. The ripe berries taste sweeter if the plant gets full sun, enough water and even a bit of fertilizer. I have also cooked the leaves but was not that excited about them. However, if you go to google scholar and do a search on solanum nigrum and polyphenols or flavenols you will find that the plant has many health benefits. However, just as one can be allergic to strawberries, tomatoes or just about anything, it always pays to start cautiously with a food that is new to you, and of course, identify it carefully.
Hi Kathleen, can i get the seeds from you? am in Wellington
A comment from Pat E about distinguishing Solanum nigrum and S. nodiflorum: “The flowers on S. nodiflorum are usually smaller. The leaves are usually bigger and rather less substantial. They feel thin and are usually glabrous. The species likes shade and wet areas.”
Hi there. I just wanted to say that I used to eat handfuls of ripe ‘nightshade’ berries without any ill effects when I was a kid growing up in Auckland (and sometimes as an adult in Wellington). I knew that deadly nightshade only grew south of Christchurch, otherwise I wouldn’t have touched them. I called them ‘nightshade’ as opposed to ‘deadly nightshade’, but I don’t know if they would have been S. nigrum or S. nodiflorum. They are actually quite tasty – a sweet fruity taste with a hint of tomato.
Thanks Jamie.
Great articles. I am native north Borneo (Sabah) Malaysia. In our backyard, heaps of wild growing S. nigrum that we consumed as food (leaves-vege) mostly cook it with some chicken, salted fish or meat and so as the ripe black berries. The leaves when cook tasted bitteness but good flavoring cuisine. The berries however tasted like sour to slightly sweet. Toxic – yes for the green unripe berry. I always wanted to cook some black nightshade here in Canterbury region. But haven’t got time to harvest it as our vege garden need lots of improvement from the weeds…:P
After a little bit of research Black night shade, or Blackberry Nightshade is different to Deadly nightshade (Belladona). There is not a lot of Belladona found in NZ, it tends to be found in the Canterbury region.
Both do have toxicity levels but then all members of the nightshade family do (potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes).
Both have medicinal uses, but it is only black nightshade that is used for food.
Black nightshade you can eat the ripe berries (not the green ones as these are definitely toxic) and fresh leaves. The flowers are white and tend to spread from the individual stalk
Deadly night shade the entire plant is toxic to humans and animals, in particular the root of the plant. The flowers are purple and tend to clump from one main point on the stem.
I was involved in a gardening project working with migrants. The ripe berries and leaves (baked with chicken, etc) of black nightshade are eaten in Niue and by the Niuean community here, with no ill effect. I’ve also been told that they eat the same plant in Iran.
I’ve read that in some parts of central American the berries of a deadly night shade are used in place of rennet for making cheese – but this requires great care/knowledge or you risk poisoning. (In Gary Paul Nabhan’s ‘Desert terroir : exploring the unique flavors and sundry places of the borderlands’.)
Thanks very much for sharing your observations Stewart.
Happy to report that I’ve eaten the ripe purple berries of black nightshade for several years now without ill effect. It’s a common weed on my property in Levin. The larger plants can be hard to pull out and the stem will often slip through the hands, leaving sap/juice and squashed berries on your hands, however I’ve never suffered any ill-effects from this – except a sore lower back from yanking at too many plants to try to up-root them!
Hi Grant,
Short answer: I don’t know, sorry.
I am not aware of similar reports of black nightshade sap being problematic. And, with my previous weedy garden, I did pull out numerous black nightshade plants without ill effect, but I don’t remember getting the sap on my skin.
However, the sap of some plant species can be poisonous/toxic via skin contact, and ***people do differ in their reactions***.
Although a lot of people report happily consuming black nightshade, it is I think worth pointing out that the NZ Poisons Centre list it amongst their top 10 poisonous plants; for more, see: http://www.poisons.co.nz/fact.php?f=12&c=22
I hope you’re feeling better by now.
Leon
By the way, ref one of the earlier comments, Woody Nightshade is an alternative common name for Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) in the UK.
Hi, interested to read the comments above. Very strange experience today – tried to pull up a particularly vigorous specimen of presumably black nightshade growing in our compost bin. As I pulled I stripped the outer stem, leaving green juice over my hands. Thinking nothing of it, I carried on with my chores. Ten minutes or so later, I came over very peculiar – sweating, dizziness, disorientation, etc. I had to sit down before I fell down. Several hour later symptoms still persist but milder. Is this a coincidence or was it a result of toxicity from the nightshade? Can it enter the body via the skin? Thanks.
Grant –
I have a very similar reaction to black nightshade. For me, just touching it can cause nausea and dizziness within a half hour. Strong coffee and a meclizine (an antihistamine that doubles as a motion sickness remedy) help me back. The effects last about three hours. Sorry for your misery. I absolutely understand the rapidity with which it grabs you. It is a plant people should handle with caution until they know their individual reaction. Hence the families reputation I suppose.
I have been eating the ripe black night for years it tasts really good,a Maori friend came to visit so I asked him what are these and he said we used to have them mashed with cream when he was a kid ,I have never tried the leaves love all the feed back all my friends say hey don’t eat that they are shocked when I tell them I been eating them for long time
The information on deadly nightshade are incorrect as it has been recorded in auckland/northland and whanganui with no traceable record in cantebury so please site sources.
Kia ora Ahaan,
The only New Zealand location for Atropa bella-donna given by the Flora of New Zealand Volume 4 is “Canterbury (Christchurch)”. I can see on the Australasian Virtual Herbarium several records of herbarium specimens identified as that species from the Christchurch area. I can also see there is a record or two from Auckland, but they might not be for wild plants. Can you please share details of the records you know for Auckland/Northland and Whanganui.
Ngā mihi, Leon
Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for your observations. I’m particularly interested in your report of Deadly Nightshade near Thames. I can’t find any official accounts of this species in NZ outside Canterbury. Do you remember where near Thames you saw it, as I will investigate next time I am up there. It would be great to verify your find with a specimen, and then spread the word.
Thanks, Leon
PS. there are other nightshade (or nightshade-like) species in NZ with purple flowers (in addition to the poroporo species too).
Here in NZ, I often eat Black Nightshade leaves raw in salads ( or this weekend, sautéed and added to the filling for some savory puff pastry pinwheels hehe). Initially I was taught this by a friend who is a long- time forager ( and mentioned in one of Andrew Crowe’s foraging books). I was taught one of the simplest ways to differentiate between Black and Deadly Nightshade, is that black Nightshade has white flowers, whereas Deadly Nightshade has purple. I’ve only discovered Deadly Nightshade on two occasions here in NZ, the first being in Thames, the second time I cannot recall clearly. The main caution is to avoid unripe berries, as they have a high solanine content which could make you sick.
Hi Leon,
Many thanks for that,
Jacinda
Hi Jacinda,
I suspect your visitor will be okay. She nevertheless seems a bit cavalier. Perhaps she’s an expert with these plants, but if not, we should remember that there are around the world a number of very similar-looking species and forms whose toxicity may vary. I’d err on the side of caution.
Black nightshade and its allies are included in the “Plants that Poison. A New Zealand Guide” book. The book is probably being cautious, but its advice is worth knowing before contemplating eating New Zealand material of this species. It says that the unripe berries are the most toxic part of the plant, and that signs and symptoms can be delayed by 6-12 hours and can include fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, and even stupor. Its advice is to “Contact the National Poisons Centre [0800 764 766] if more than 3 unripe or 6 ripe berries are eaten, or any symptoms occur”.
Leon
We have a patch of native bush and have some black nightshade that grows on the margin. We recently had a visitor from South Korea who, as she was walking past..spoke of the black nightshade saying “that is exactly the plant we have growing in South Korea and it is regularly eaten”. Then she picked some very black berries and ate them before we could stop her saying they tasted exactly the same as those in South Korea…(she was also very pregnant). She has since left but this has been worrying us. We did a google search and found that black nightshade is eaten in many asian countries and in Africa. Although it is shunned in Western countries. What do you think about this? We would be interested to hear.
Melissa, the identity of deadly nightshade refers to the news story linked to, not to the pictures. As gone over in the comments, the fruit are not necessarily poisonous, but wild plants are perhaps best treated with caution.
I am so unclear as to weather the pictures above are that of deadly night shade or black night shade??? It goes on and on about black night shade but then says at the top that these are deadly
very confusing for me
i have this plant growing in my garden thought it was random tomato plants so i left them the little purple berries taste like tomato!
i would love to know if i need to get rid of them or eat them??
In BC canada
Hi there,
Fascinating to read some of the info posted here. Here’s another non-medicinal/nutritional use for the berries: I have a fascinating recipe for writing ink using ripe belladonna berries and gum arabic or egg white. I haven’t tried it yet, but I intend to give it a go. I have my doubts about its suitability for use in fountain pens, so I’ll wait until I’ve got a decent goose quill available.
Hi Mike,
I’m not sure what you mean by “woody nightshade” – perhaps the climbing/sprawling Solanum dulcamara (bittersweet) or the small tree Solanum mauritianum (woolly nightshade)? The “Common Weeds of New Zealand” book implies that both are or may be toxic to stock. Control methods are available on the Weedbuster’s website: http://weedbusters.co.nz/weed_info/detail.asp?WeedID=94
Ive noticed that my cattle will eat woody nightshade before any thing else when shifted into a paddock.Is it harmful to them and horses and how do I get rid of it.
This site might also be of interest: http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/poisonous-plants-and-fungi/3/2
Hi Rudi,
Interesting to hear it’s for sale in Auckland. Each to their own.
Solanum nigrum still gets a mention in the recent book “Plants that Poison” http://www.mwpress.co.nz/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=838. “Not any of them [S. nigrum and its close allies] are actually very poisonous, but for common safety it is best to warn children against them…” “The unripe berries are the most toxic, and other parts less so.”
I have seen this plant appear on Auckland markets being sold as a vegetable, which surprised me a bit given that we think this a poisonous plant. I know I have it in my garden and having recently discovered unother weedy looking plant that is highly nutrious (Amaranth)I googled black night shade and came accross the Te Papa blog. But also many other websites and if can trust those than Solanum nigra seems to be edible compared con-generic species, which are poisonous. If Solanum nigra would be poisonous I guess there must be an awefull lot of poeple in Auckland poisening themselves with this stuff.
Apparently it is good for diabetes. I just dug a lot up and my Fijian neighbour told me off saying it was good for diabetes… not sure if that means prevention or if it helps with symptoms.
I’ve been patiently watching the S. Nigrum grow in my newly restored front garden, hoping it to be cape gooseberry. I’m sticking with Christopher’s advice and pulling it out as soon as I get the chance.
Angela
Thanks Hugo. Leon
Hi, friends:
S.americanum is named “Yerba o hierba mora” in spanish, It has a wide medicinal use in America and Africa. In Guatemala,leaves is eaten in salad and fruits are eating in food cooked. An medicinal use as topic is in remedy the ache of herpes zooster.
Various communications are contradictory, the saponines are toxics for ones , others said that the people has development tolerance to toxins (as in Guatemala).
Better than, is be careful , that is possible that confuse with other solanum and include domestic solanums (potato (papa) or tomato) may be toxics.
Thanks
Hugo
Hi Christopher,
Many thanks for the information. That’s quite a hefty report so it might take me a while to read it.
Cheers,
Leon
Hi Christopher,
Our spam filter doesn’t seem to like you, that’s why your comment didn’t appear. Sorry about that :/
Florence, web admin
Looks like Solanum nodiflorum has now been accepted as the correct name for what was previously called Solanum americanum in New Zealand.
I did reply the other day, but the interweb seems to have swallowed my answer. Lets have another go, shall we?
Anyway, I found a review (http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/publications/pdf/337.pdf) of Solanum nigrum and relatives’ taxonomy, and their culinary uses. Fruit are eaten ripe or cooked, and leaves are used as a pot herb (so boiled, sometimes with a change of water).
I know I’ve tried eating the berries, but I can’t say as I remember what it tasted like. All I can say is that I aten’t dead.
I found this survey of the culinary uses of Solanum nigrum and related species, which includes a taxonomic overview. It does sound like the berries lose toxicity as they ripen, while the leaves are generally eaten as a pot herb after being boiled to remove any toxicity (in some places, they’re even boiled in more than one change of water).
I believe I have tried eating the ripe berries, but I can’t say as I can remember what they were like. I can say, however, that I aten’t dead.
Hi Christopher,
Interesting, thanks. Have you ever eaten some yourself? I’ve seen some suggestions that the leaves and unripe fruit are (or can be) toxic, whereas the ripe fruit may be okay. I, for one, am not going to be purposefully eating black nightshade in New Zealand until I’m convinced that the material weedy here is the same as that eaten elsewhere. The taxonomy of Solanum nigrum and its relatives appears to be still evolving (which is a statement that could be levelled at most of the world’s biota, I suppose). For instance, it’s been brought to my attention that the species I referred to above as S. americanum should be called S. nodiflorum (see http://www.springerlink.com/content/gmm700927409465h/). I’d appreciate being directed to any recent taxonomic works on S. nigrum, its segregates, and its relationships to its close allies.
Thanks,
Leon
Black nightshade is thought to be no where near as toxic as deadly nightshade. Nevertheless, I suspect no-one would recommend it for human consumption.
Actually, the toxicity seems to vary between varieties. Leaves of Solanum nigrum and closely related species are eaten as a vegetable in many parts of the world, as are the fruit. The American huckleberry is a variety of S. nigrum or a very closely related species.