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Wikipedia / Solanum

Solanum is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, which include three food crops of high economic importance: the potato, the tomato and the eggplant (aubergine, brinjal). It is the largest genus in the nightshade family Solanaceae, comprising around 1,500 species. It also contains the so-called horse nettles (unrelated to the genus of true nettles, Urtica), as well as numerous plants cultivated for their ornamental flowers and fruit.

Solanum species show a wide range of growth habits, such as annualss and perennialss, vines, subshrubs, shrubs, and small trees. Many formerly independent genera like Lycopersicon (the tomatoes) and Cyphomandra are now included in Solanum as subgenera or sectionss. Thus, the genus today contains roughly 1,500–2,000 species.

Name

The generic name was first used by Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79) for a plant also known as , most likely S.nigrum. Its derivation is uncertain, possibly stemming from the Latin word , meaning "sun", referring to its status as a plant of the sun.

Species having the common name "nightshade"

The species most commonly called nightshade in North America and Britain is Solanum dulcamara, also called bittersweet or woody nightshade (so-called because it is a scandent shrub). Its foliage and egg-shaped red berries are poisonous, the active principle being solanine, which can cause convulsions and death if taken in large doses. Black nightshades (many species in the Solanum nigrum complex, Solanum sect. Solanum) have varying levels of toxins and are considered too toxic to eat by many people in North America and Europe, but young stems and leaves or fully ripened fruit of various species are cooked and eaten by native people in North America, Africa, and Asia. Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) belongs, like Solanum, to subfamily Solanoideae of the nightshade family, but, unlike that genus, is a member of tribe Hyoscyameae (Solanum belongs to tribe Solaneae). The chemistry of Atropa species is very different from that of Solanum species and features the very toxic tropane alkaloids, the best-known of which is atropine.

Taxonomy

The genus was established by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. Its subdivision has always been problematic, but slowly some sort of consensus is being achieved.

The following list is a provisional lineup of the genus' traditional subdivisions, together with some notable species. Many of the subgenera and sectionss might not be valid; they are used here provisionally as the phylogeny of this genus is not fully resolved yet and many species have not been reevaluated.

Cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data suggest that the present subdivisions and rankings are largely invalid. Far more subgenera would seem to warrant recognition, with Leptostemonum being the only one that can at present be clearly subdivided into sections. Notably, it includes as a major lineage several members of the traditional sections Cyphomandropsis and the old genus Cyphomandra.

Subgenus Bassovia

Section Allophylla

Section Cyphomandropsis

Section Pachyphylla

Subgenus Leptostemonum

Section Acanthophora

Section Androceras

12 spp.

  • Series Androceras

  • Series Violaceiflorum

  • Series Pacificum

Section Anisantherum

Section Campanulata

Section Crinitum

Section Croatianum

Section Erythrotrichum

Section Graciliflorum

Section Herposolanum

Section Irenosolanum

Section Ischyracanthum

Section Lasiocarpa

Section Melongena

Section Micracantha

Section Monodolichopus

Section Nycterium

Section Oliganthes

Section Persicariae

Section Polytrichum

Section Pugiunculifera

Section Somalanum

Section Torva

Subgenus Lyciosolanum

Subgenus Solanum

Also known as: Solanum sensu stricto.

Section Afrosolanum

Section Anarrhichomenum

Section Archaesolanum

Section Basarthrum

Section Benderianum

Section Brevantherum

Section Dulcamara

Section Herpystichum

Section Holophylla

Section Juglandifolia

Section Lemurisolanum

Section Lycopersicoides

Section Lycopersicon

Also known as: tomato lineage.

Section Macronesiotes

Section Normania

Section Petota

Also known as the "potato lineage". Including: subsections Estolonifera and Potatoe.

Section Pteroidea

Section Quadrangulare

Section Regmandra

Section Solanum

Solanum nigrum L. – European black nightshade, "black nightshade"

Notable species not otherwise placed

Formerly placed here

Some plants of other genera were formerly placed in Solanum:

Phylogeny

The following phylogeny of Solanaceae is from Zhang et al. (2025) figure 1B. It is based on a consensus of 500 trees randomly sampled from 1-Mb genomic windows with 200-kb step size.

The non-italicized names inside of Solanum refer to the major clade names within Solanum. These names usually include the similarly-named section but do not have taxonomic standing.

Ecology

Solanum species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species (butterflies and moths).

Toxicity

Most parts of the plants, especially the green parts and unripe fruit, are poisonous to humans (although not necessarily to other animals), with some species even being deadly.

Uses

Many species in the genus bear some edible parts, such as fruits, leaves, or tubers. Three crops in particular have been bred and harvested for consumption by humans for centuries, and are now cultivated on a global scale:

Tomato, S. lycopersicum

  • Tomato varieties are sometimes bred from both S.lycopersicum and wild tomato species such as S.pimpinellifolium, S.peruvianum, S.cheesmanii, S.galapagense, S.chilense, etc. (such varieties include—among others—Bicentennial, Dwarf Italian, Epoch, Golden Sphere, Hawaii, Ida Red, Indigo Rose, Kauai, Lanai, Marion, Maui, Molokai, Niihau, Oahu, Owyhee, Parma, Payette, Red Lode, Super Star, Surecrop, Tuckers Forcing, V 121, Vantage, Vetomold, and Waltham.)

Potato, S. tuberosum, fourth largest food crop.

  • Less important but cultured relatives used in small amounts include S.stenotomum, S.phureja, S.goniocalyx, S.ajanhuiri, S.chaucha, S.juzepczukii, S.curtilobum.

  • Eggplant (also known as brinjal or aubergine), S.melongena

Other species are significant food crops regionally, such as Ethiopian eggplant or scarlet eggplant (S. aethiopicum), naranjilla or lulo (S. quitoense), cocona (S. sessiliflorum), turkey berry (S. torvum), pepino or pepino melon (S. muricatum), tamarillo (S. betaceum), wolf apple (S. lycocarpum), garden huckleberry (S. scabrum) and "bush tomatoes" (several Australian species).

Ornamentals

The species most widely seen in cultivation as ornamental plants are:

Medicine

Several species are locally used in folk medicine, particularly by native people who have long employed them.

References

Further reading

Updated taxonomic treatments not yet integrated:

  • subgen. Leptostemonum

  • last article in a three-part series of monographic treatments of the morelloid clade

General references: