Description

Indian Nightshade is a much branched shrub 0.3-1.5 m high, with large prickles. Stem is stout, often purple. Branches are covered with minute stellate hairs. Leaves are 5-15 by 2.5-7.5 cm ovate in outline, acute, clothed with simple hairs. Flowers are borne in racemose extra axillary cymes, purple colored, clothed with darker purple colored hairs. Fruit is a berry 8 mm diameter, spherical, green to yellow, and orange when ripe. Indian Nightshade is found in China, East Himalaya, Bangladesh to SE Asia, and Eastern and Western Ghats. It is found in Eastern Himalaya at altitudes of 100-2700 m.

Characteristics:

A shrub up to l0 ft high, branches herbaceous. Stem and branches often with curved prickles; young parts, inflorescene, leaves with stellate tomentose. Leaves ovate or oblong, serrate or obtusely lobed. Flower bluish- purple in extra-axillary cyme. Fruit berry, globose, smooth about an inch in dia. The leaves of eastern black nightshade are triangular to elliptic. The stems are circular, and sometimes slightly hairy. The flowers are small, white, and star-shaped, and they occur in small umbels of 5-7. The flowers ripen into glossy, black berries, each 10 mm in diameter and containing between 50 and 100 seeds. The ripened fruits have been shown to be not poisonous in low to moderate amounts, however the unripened berries are toxic. The berries are eaten and dispersed by birds.

Medicinal Uses:

In traditional Indian medicines, infusions are used in case of dysentery, stomach complaints, and fever and to treat tuberculosis (Kaushik et al., 2009). The juice of the plant is used on ulcers and other skin diseases. The fruits are used as a tonic, laxative, appetite stimulant, and for treating asthma.