The Solanaceae plant family includes scary and infamous poison plants, as well as some wonderful medicinal plants which are still used in surgical applications today. And some of our most favorite food crops are members of this family.
Do you know how to identify plants of the Solanaceae family with their five petals?
Some members of the family contain powerful alkaloids. These chemicals assist the plants that contain them in their never ending battle to protect themselves from herbivores. The more potent the brew of alkaloids present in the plant’s constituents, the fewer the species of pests that can safely ingest it. The most infamous member of the family is tobacco, but it also includes tomatoes, eggplant, and potatoes.
Gardeners in the region are familiar with "trompillo," or Purple Nightshade. The blooms are oh so pretty blue stars with yellow stamens, and they produce a small, round green fruit that turns yellow and then dries black. It’s nearly impossible to pull up, and when broken off, it sends two or three new shoots to the surface. It’s hated, vilified, yanked, sprayed, mowed, burned, stomped and cursed every day of every growing season.
Another Solanaceae is Datura. Atropine and scopolamine are two of its chemical constituents which have been used to produce surgical drugs. Although the concentration of these chemicals varies from plant to plant in response to such stresses as heat, wind, hummingbird moth caterpillar damage, and soil types, it should always be considered poisonous. It has been found to pull heavy metals from the soil and the government has done some experimental plantings of Datura in an effort to decontaminate soils that have been polluted with uranium and plutonium.
Also common is a round leafed groundcover that is often the only plant growing on bare soil slopes: the wild version of tomatillo. Salsa verde con tomatillos may not be as popular here as in the Rio Grande Valley, pero la planta es muy importante to our multicultural heritage! It has yellow, bell-like flowers hanging beneath its leaves, which later develop into many pointed, green, papery bladders each of which contains a tiny replica of a green tomato. Doves, quail, meadowlarks and bossy curved bill thrashers harvest the majority of the fruit.
There are three regional members of a genus similar to Physalis, to which tomatillo belongs. Dr. Barton Warnock, who produced three wonderful plant identification books for west Texas in the early 1970’s called the Chamaesaracha “False Ground Cherry,” since tomatillo is also known as ground cherry. The three species are hard to tell apart. All of them have hairy leaves and hug the ground, so they are usually half-covered with small particles of sand clinging to their leaves. Instead of hanging down like the tomatillo, the pale yellow blossoms point straight up at the sky, bright, cheerful anomalies that seem to pop from a plant that otherwise looks dead from all the sand on it.
In tight, gravely soil, purple ground cherry can be found, too. Quincula has potential for use as a landscape ground cover. Several xeriscape growers have attempted to decipher its horticultural needs. Another member of the family is buffalo bur. The yellow, star shaped flowers are pretty, but the plant is covered with spines. The leaves, stems, and fruit are all covered with spines.
There are other species to look for too. Most of the species of Solanaceae like the toughest soils, or freshly disturbed soils. Learn about the fascinating chemistry of these bizarre and wonderful members of the Solanaceae family. It’s a lot more fun than dismissing what is seen with one glance and grimacing, “What a bunch of ugly weeds. Yuck.”
Nature Notes is sponsored by the Dixon Water Foundation and is produced by KRTS Marfa Public Radio in cooperation with the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, Texas. This episode was written by Burr Williams of the Sibley Nature Center.