Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for American Black Nightshade - Solanum americanum   P. Miller
Members of Solanaceae:
Members of Solanum with account distribution info or public map:
Flora of SE USGoogle Images
Section 6 » Family Solanaceae
AuthorP. Miller
DistributionSee Solanum emulans. What Weakley (2024) now calls S. americanum is a mostly coastal native species found from SC southward, though his map does show the species as provenance uncertain in the NC Coastal Plain. Unfortunately, SERNEC contains dozens of specimens under this name, and Weakley (2024) assigns about all to S. emulans and thus the editors have no way to know if any of these many specimens now refer to "true" americanum. NOTE -- this taxon has also been named as S. nigrum in some references; Weakley (2024) has this name subsumed in emulans.

"E. SC (and NC?) south to s. FL, west to e. TX; western North America, Mexico, Central America, South America" (Weakley 2024).
AbundanceLikely absent in NC under Weakley's (2024) taxonomy.
Habitat
Phenology
IdentificationTrue S. americanum has "Mature berries dropping without the pedicel; calyx lobes strongly reflexed in fruit; stone cells (sclerotic granules) (0-) 2-4 (-6) per berry", versus S. emulans having "Mature berries dropping with the pedicel; calyx lobes appressed to spreading in fruit; stone cells (6-) 8 (-9) per berry" (Weakley 2024).
Taxonomic CommentsSee Distribution.

Other Common Name(s)
State RankSRF
Global RankG5
State Status
US Status
USACE-agcp
USACE-emp
County Map - click on a county to view source of record.