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Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-1132
Silverleaf Nightshade
Solanum elaeagnifolium
A silvery-haired, upright perennial nightshade of the southern and central United States and northern Mexico, usually 30 to 90 cm tall, its stems, leaves and calyces covered in dense star-shaped hairs that give the whole plant a metallic sheen. Lance-shaped, wavy-margined leaves accompany violet to bluish, sometimes white, star-shaped flowers with yellow anthers from spring through fall, followed by round yellow berries resembling small cherry tomatoes. Spreads both by seed and by creeping underground roots that send up new shoots at a distance from the parent plant, forming persistent colonies once established. All plant parts, especially ripe fruit, contain the toxic alkaloid solanine and are poisonous to cattle, horses, sheep and goats. Tolerates full sun, drought and a wide range of soil textures from sandy to clay loam, needing no supplemental water once established.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 7–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6.8–7.2
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 12–36 in
- Mature spread
- Not yet recorded
- Plant spacing
- 18–24 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Both
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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