Solanum villosum
Mill. Red-fruited NightshadeErect or spreading, usually annual herb to 70 cm high. Hairs simple, of 2 types: antrorse, subappressed and scattered or short, erect, and glandular. Stems rounded to angled, pubescent; prickles absent. Leaves broadly ovate or elliptic-ovate, 3–8 cm long, 2–6 cm wide, apex acute or acuminate, base cuneate, margins entire or shallowly lobed, concolorous,becoming glabrate above, remaining hairy beneath, especially towards base; petiole to 4.5 cm long. Inflorescences simple, umbellate, 3–8-flowered; peduncle c. 1 cm long, unbranched, densely covered in eglandular antrorse hairs and a few glandular ones. Pedicels 4–10 mm long, becoming deflexed in fruit. Calyx 1–2 mm long, lobes ovate or triangular-ovate, becoming reflexed, somewhat accrescent. Corolla shallowly incised, (4–)5–8(–15) mm diam., white basal yellow-green star, lobes c. 3 mm long. ovate to oblong. Anthers 1.5–2.2 mm long. Style 3-4.5 mm. Berry globose, 5–8(–10) mm diam., dull orange-red; seeds many, 1.7–2.3 mm long, pale yellow; stone-cell granules present, c. 0.5 mm diam., or absent. Flowers autumn (based on 1 Victorian collection).
VVP. Also naturalised in WA, SA, Qld. Solanum villosum is believed to have originated in Eurasia, and is sometimes considered to have a southern European origin (PROTA4U). In Victoria, known from a single recent (2021) collection from near Lethbridge, where growing in degraded pasture with occasional native plants.
Part of the Solanum nigrum species complex.