Nightshade Family [Solanaceae] |
Berries: (poisonous) |
status
flower
inner
morph
petals
type
stem
toxicity
sex
10th May 2014, Guernsey, Channel Islands | Photo: © Maryline Calabrin |
A perennial flower belonging to the Nightshade family. Leaves not toothed. |
10th May 2014, Guernsey, Channel Islands | Photo: © Maryline Calabrin |
The flowers hand downwards, are bell-shaped and totally white when opened. When in bud stage the outside of the petals are yellow nearer the tip. The flower is 6-10mm across at the bell-end. |
10th May 2014, Guernsey, Channel Islands | Photo: © Maryline Calabrin |
Flowers with dark purple(ish) stalks, thin long pale-green sepals, and a white style with discoidal end, which has the anthers of the stamens held appressed to it. The plant is covered in short curled hairs all over apart from the petals, of which there are 5 recurved at the bell end. The berries (not shown) are also whitish and between 10-15mm across. |
10th May 2014, Guernsey, Channel Islands | Photo: © Maryline Calabrin |
A leaf edge and leaf stem with short, curly hairs. Those on the leaf are appressed. |
Not to be semantically confused with : Cock's-Foot (Dactylis glomerata),
Easily mis-identified as : Some similarities to : Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum) which also has small white flowers, but there the 5 petals of the flowers open up properly, are not bell-shaped, but do face downwards. The stems are black (rather than the green of Cock's-eggs) Slight resemblance to : Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis) which also has white bell-shaped flowers which hang downwards, but the leaves are broad-lanceolate and emanate from near ground level and stand erect close to the main stem. The plant is a neophyte grown in gardens and which becomes naturalised in Suffolk, Abbotsbury, Lowestoft, Dorset, and especially in Guernsey. It grows to 1.5m with stems which have many branches.
It contains several Salpichrolides such as
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Salpichroa | origanifolia | ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ | Solanaceae |
Salpichroa (Cock's-Eggs) |
Nightshade Family [Solanaceae] |