Solanum nigrumL.

black nightshade

WFO wfo-0001029815 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g

Solanum nigrum, photographed by Cowirrie
fig. a Cowirrie, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-21 / obs. 200123112
Solanum nigrum, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. b Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205522724
Solanum nigrum, photographed by Tony Wills
fig. c Tony Wills, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193548204
Solanum nigrum, photographed by Victor Heng
fig. d Victor Heng, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193926699
Solanum nigrum, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. e Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197795805
Solanum nigrum, photographed by Halema J
fig. f Halema J, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191933469
Solanum nigrum, photographed by David Orlovich
fig. g David Orlovich, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193379436

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 4,767 observations

Peak flowering in Oct, from 4,767 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 99 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Solanum acutifolium Kit. ex Kanitz
  • Solanum atriplicifolium Desp. ex Dunal
  • Solanum atriplicifolium var. atriplicifolium
  • Solanum bidentatum Raf.
  • Solanum cechicum Opiz
  • Solanum chenopodiifolium H.Lév.
  • Solanum chenopodiifolium Dunal
  • Solanum chenopodium Raf.
  • Solanum chlorocarpum Schur
  • Solanum cuneifolium Dunal
  • Solanum decipiens Opiz
  • Solanum deppei Dunal
  • Solanum exaratum Raf.
  • Solanum ganchouenense H.Lév.
  • Solanum guineense var. nepalense Dunal
  • Solanum hirsutum Kit. ex Kanitz
  • Solanum humile Salisb.
  • Solanum humile Nocca
  • Solanum judaicum Hack. ex Dunal
  • Solanum judaicum Besser
  • Solanum judaicum (L.) Miq.
  • Solanum luridum Wessely
  • Solanum memphiticum var. repandum Dunal
  • Solanum morella Desv.

and 75 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.