#CarolinaHorsenettle
LightNews LightNews
wendymages.bsky.social
Daily Peace Post

Please enjoy this post and share this peace offering with someone who may need a few seconds of peace in their day.

If you like this peace post, please❤️it and consider reposting it and following for more….

#peace #peacepost #story #storytelling #flowers #carolinahorsenettle
July 29, 2025 at 8:25 AM
tkg-nc.bsky.social
The Wild Harvest Digest: June 2025, #3

Good Morning Neighbors,

Today we are going back to a wild plant because they are starting to spring up in gardens out here in North Carolina and you ought to know about them. #CarolinaHorsenettle #Native #PoisonousPlant
<Alt Text 1 of 3> Today’s plant is in the Solanaceae family and its scientific name is Solanum carolinense. The word Solanum is from the Latin word solamen which translates to “comforting or soothing” the specific epithet ‘carolinense’ means ‘of or from Carolina’. This plant is a warm season perennial that has a erect or sprawling form and spreads via the seeds in its berries or by its rhizome. This plant has a lot of common names; some of them are pretty wild even by TWHD standards. So (S. carolinense) is known as; Radical Weed, Sand Breier, Sand Briar, Bull Nettle, Tread-Softly, Devil’s Tomato, Wild Tomato, Apple of Sodom, Devil’s Potato, Horsenettle, Poisonous Potato, Thorn Apple and finally the name I use for it Carolina Horsenettle. Needless to say this plant is in the Tomato family and is not even remotely related to the Nettles which are in the Urticaceae Family. As if that were not bad enough, it has a few alternate scientific names such as Solanum mammosum*, Solanum floridanum and, Solanum godfreyi. Now, for those of you who are familiar with wild foraging, sometimes you win some with a wild plant and other times you lose some. When it comes to Carolina Horsenettle you lose big. <Alt Text 1 of 3> <Alt Text 2 of 3> First let’s talk about how to identify this native plant and then we can talk a bit about the pros and cons of having it near your yard. You can always Identify Carolina Horsenettle by a few traits that it always seems to have. The leaves of Carolina Horsenettle are typically dull green in color and may have coarsely lobed margins. Additionally, Carolina Horsenettle will have star-shaped hairs on the margins of the foliage. In addition, the stems and undersides of the leaves will have spines that may be troublesome enough to require protective clothing. The flowers are in clusters that can have five to twenty individual star shaped flowers that will be light violent or white in color. The fruit starts as a smooth green berry that turns yellow and becomes wrinkly as it reaches maturity. The berries of this plant may stay attached to the plant through some or all of the winter even though the foliage has died off. In the urban landscape you will find this plant popping out of random places right about now. As is seen with the included photographs cracks in cement are perfectly applicable places to find this plant. They are not too picky about soil type and can survive our heat and periodic drought just fine. I have one that keeps coming back by my driveway and I’ve resorted to just weed whacking it whenever I see it’s appeared with the longer term strategy of running it out of energy. <Alt Text 2 of 3> <Alt Text 3 of 3> The advantages of having this plant around are limited but present as it is pollinated by our native bumblebees and so you are helping a pollinator. The berries of Carolina Horsenettle are eaten by Wild Turkeys and Quail without issue so for the wild life it’s just fine and that might be one of the only reasons to have a patch of it out in the woods somewhere, to get at the wild game it attracts. A final and maybe questionable advantage to Carolina Horsenettle is that this plant could be good at holding soil in place as it has deep taproots, rhizomes and fibrous roots. The disadvantages to this plant are that it’s poisonous to livestock, people, dogs and cats. This plant produces a toxin in all parts that is known as Solanine and this compound is most concentrated in the fall. The berries, which are bright yellow when ripe are tempting as trail forage but unfortunately they are the most toxic when ripe and have no safe period in which to eat them. The foliage is noted to be less toxic than the rest but still dangerous. As far as I can tell this plant is a rare example of pretty much everyone from the Horticulture, Agriculture, Herbal Medicine, Foraging and other similar communities agreeing that a plant is totally unsafe to eat. Honestly, this rarely happens and everyone who reads this should take note. But wait, it gets worse! Colonies of Carolina Horsenettle are hard to control once they are established because of their root systems and if you don’t achieve a complete eradication they can become resistant or immune to specific herbicides if they aren’t already. Also, these plants can be a host plant for Colorado Potato Beetle, Eggplant Flea Beetle, and a host for Tobacco Hornworms which means these pests can move over to other Nightshade crops. *Solanum mammosum is the sci name of Fox Eggplant/ Nipple Fruit Eggplant a related but very different plant. <Alt Text 3 of 3>
June 20, 2025 at 1:17 AM