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Laurel Trees
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Rusty Hinge wrote: The message from Kay Easton contains these words: When the berries are ripe they are perfectly edible, and are sweetish and refreshing. Apart from the size of the plants and their fruits, I can see no difference between black nightshade and 'garden huckleberries', nor taste any. IIRC there are two different plants commonly called huckleberry, and one of them is indeed black nightshade or a variety of it. I grew it once, but wasn't particularly enamoured of it. There's much nicer berries around. Both black nightshade and woody nightshade are Solanum, and isn't Solanum melongela the aubergine? Black nightshade is Solanum nigrum and woody nightshade is S. dulcamara. Aubergines are horrid, nasty, pithy, flavourless things. Black nightshade beats them by not being pithy. If you have eaten only UK supermarket aubergines, then you may well have that impression. It is, however, mistaken. The reason that I don't eat black nightshade, despite being fairly adventurous, is that the Solanaceae are notorious for having plants with some parts of some varieties at some stages of development after some treatments that are edible and good, and the same plant under other conditions causing permanent damage. I have not yet seen a trustworthy description of the conditions under which black nightshade is safe to eat, though I have seen a fair number of statements that the cooked, ripe berry is. But none of them were clear the exact species and/or variety (and it is a VERY widespread species, so geographic strains or growing conditions could be important). Tomato is Lycopersicum esculentum, but I've completely forgotten what the potato is. It's a starchy tuber you get in greengrocers' shops. It is also Solanum tuberosum, and is quite commonly grown in UK gardens. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
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