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Solanum carolinense
The fruit of Carolina Horsenettle resembles tomatoes - immature fruit is dark green with stripes; as it matures, the fruit turns yellow and wrinkles.
I spotted lots of these fruits in various states of decay throughout a meadow. A good clue that a fruit may be toxic is when they are still left in nature after a long winter - not even the animals will eat them.
All parts of this plant are poisonous to varying degrees due to the presence of solanine, which is a toxic alkaloid. Ingesting any part of the plant can cause fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. However, ingesting the fruit can cause severe abdominal pain, circulatory and respiratory depression, and death.
Spotted on Apr 10, 2018
Submitted on Apr 12, 2018
3 Comments
Thanks for your comment maplemoth, and thank you for the nomination Ashley!
Your spotting has been nominated for the Spotting of the Week. The winner will be chosen by the Project Noah Rangers based on a combination of factors including: uniqueness of the shot, status of the organism (for example, rare or endangered), quality of the information provided in the habitat and description sections. There is a subjective element, of course; the spotting with the highest number of Ranger votes is chosen. Congratulations on being nominated!
A very pretty, and a very interesting photo.