Need to identify plant

Hi, I am new here and need some help. My neighbour's grandchildren found a plant in her back yard that none of us could identify. It grows to 3-31/2 feet tall with medium green foliage and tiny 4 petal white flowers that have a bright yellow center that points toward the ground. The flowers turn into very dark purple berries that are slightly sweet. I have some pics but I can't find the cord for the camera so I can download them, but I will keep trying. Please if anyone can help, post a message here and I will check back as often as I can.

Do what you will but harm none
Shelagh Drew

 

Sounds to me like it might be a Solanum of some sort - check out S. americanum. (And stop eating unidentified berries!) Without a picture it will be difficult to positively ID it - so best of luck finding the camera dongle!

 

Yeah, I thought Solanum too...but don't their flowers have 5 petals?

 

Depends on local conditions. S. americanum in particular is wickedly variable that way.

 

What depends on local conditions?

 

Whether the flowers show four or five petals, along with the shape of the leaves and size of the berries. In frank, volcanic soils it will almost always produce five-petalled flowers, but in garden soils I've often seen 4 and even 3 petals on the flowers.

 

That is great but do you know if the berries are ok to eat?

 

Quite poisonous, actually. Which is why I counselled you to stop eating unidentified berries.

 

I have studied edible plants for about thirty years now and I find that tasting can be very helpful in deciding if they are alright, after all that is how they have done it for thousands of years. I never taste more than one berry or leaf until I know more about them.

 

Sorry, I live in a land of about 1% edible berries and the remainder are toxic or halleucinogenic to some degree. My rule has always been to not eat any fruit if I'm not completely sure what it is. Particularly with the deadly nightshade family, which is the group to which S. americanus, which we're discussing here, belongs. There's a reason it's called deadly nightshade. Only very few and select plants from that family have non-toxic fruits.

 

Solanum americanum berries are edible when fully ripe and (preferably) cooked (see Plants for a Future here), though unripe berries are slightly toxic. I'm not aware of any Solanum species being dangerously toxic (in the sense of 3 or 4 berries = death); conversely several other species are very edible, notably S. lycopersicum (Tomato) and S. melongena (Aubergine). Deadly Nightshade is of course not a Solanum, but in the not-especially-closely related genus Atropa (in tribe Hyoscyameae; Solanum in tribe Solaneae).

 

This said, Michael, would you encourage anybody to just go out and eat unidentified berries?

 

No! ;-)

 

Where I live even the cactus have edible fruit. I have picked wild fruit for most of my life to use for home canning.

I did get good pics of this plant but I can't find the cord to download to comp. :( Will keep looking.

 

Well, you should have also elderberry, baneberry and some other stuff, which is highly unadvisable to taste...