Solanum macranthum

[Vertmorpheus]

Evenin all.... neeeaarrlly Friday...hang in there.

Got a STACK of beans, fairly fresh (from fruits found dropped in the last week or so) for Solanum macranthum. Usefullness unknown, these are from trees growing happily in NW Brissie urban fringe sourced originally from Don Ellison methinks.Fairly hardy and supporting a decent colony of elkhorns, lions tail and donkeys ear plants beneath nicely spreading form. Couple stories high, brunfelsia like flowers...vicious looking character in her quiet kind of way. You want em I'll mail em...gotta be good for something, if only looks. Not big on frost but even a black frost didn't knock em off, just knocked em around (lotta dead wood but still happy enough). Any info re:potency etc would be greatly appreciated... she'd do something, whether it'd be any fun would be the question.

Might be useful for hybridisation or rootstock...dunno, just walk past em a dozen times a day at work.

grow it then get to know it?

greendreams

[apothecary]

Careful, some Solanums contain very poisonous alkaloids!

I think you can graft eggplant (Solanum melongena) onto it for good growth?

[Vertmorpheus]

yeah I know, munched a bit o leaf regardless.... nuthin. Bit o something in the fruits from readin around , but the leaves are just leaves, as far as my tongue tells me , and its been around. Not to say there's not some grievous delayed effect thing, but I think it used the furriness of older leaves as defense more than its toxicity.

Re: grafting, that's done occasionally onto S.mauritianum, the so called "bushmans tobacco" , no amount of curing or rubbing makes it smokeable, just instant spinout gutache material... Annette MacFarlane has gone n put this in her book Organic Veg Gardening or whatever, a gardening australia book... but having heard a lot about her from various people that were "taught" by her at TAFE (just over the back from grovely here, did my hort cert down at yeronga and out at toowoomba though...Brian Sams, now there's a hobbit for ya) and read a bit of her stuff, while she's the bees knees at retyping cultural notes from yates packets she actually doesn't know her stuff in any impressive sense... Captain Roundup she's called around here..can grow a kickarse annual though

anyway, further reading revealed that this practice has been knocked on the head in other countries due to a nasty habit of nor nicotine accumulating in the fruits of the veggie .... tomacco anyone? likewise that the tree tobacco makes a good "nurse" tree... it in fact attracts fruitbats as its easier access and most of their usual feeding areas are gettin cleared or at least thinned...bats munch the berries, get crook , go to sleep n never wake up (seen it personally, and the dung of em indicates some are eatin nothing but) it also makes the bats much easir prey to cats etc, being a lot lower down than most trad food sources.All I find sprouting underneath em , is more of the same, or the odd clump of blady grass (the heads of which look might like that pic in the phalaris ID thread)

not heard of anything bein tacked onto S.macranthum but I guess it's doable, might have the same issues though. I find my eggplants plenty tough already :D esp with some derris to help em along, and plenty of cal n mag.

good point though, don't go eating it...just silly people like me that do things like that (firm believer in instinct, works for those south amerikaaners eh?) It's a stunning tree though, might attract the 28 spotted bugs away from more valued crops as its a lil less furry and more "meaty" than say my nicotiana ,brugmansia, or french beans,BTW, anyone elses brugs tend to smell like a wet labrador? Might just be by mindshattering variety.

if you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise...

greendreams