James McNangle writes:
Last spring a strange plant appeared in our vegetable garden. It had large
furry leaves, and grew very rapidly.

My browsing is crippled at the moment, I'm limited to text only. But I'll
bet that it's what is known as native tobacco. Does it have flower heads
containing lots of flowers that are incredible magnets for some sort of
red and brown beetle? The seeds are most likely spread by birds.

The native tobacco is a fantastic plant, and it has been discovered that
lots of other plants can be grafted to use the tobacco as rootstock. When
performed correctly, the yield of tomatoes, etc., can double, and the
combo has strong resistance to root diseases.

what would happen. It is now a very substantial plant -- more than two metres
high -- and has developed a number of heads of solanum type flowers. You can
see some photos of it at: http://www.corybas.com/Technical/Mystery_plant.htm

It reminds me rather of tobacco, but a Greek friend tells us that it is a type
of eggplant, and that if we had had it grafted we would have an ample supply of
eggplants.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)