Soda Apple (Solanum capsicoides)

Fruits dried and splitting to spill seeds

Floridian: This is such a gorgeous picture! Isn't it funny that some of the best pictures are not necessarily lovely flowers or breathtaking sunsets. This is a lovely peak at nature replenishing its own.

Thanks Weez, I've been watching this plant to see just how it would seed...now I know. The exposed plants were badly hit by the freezes this week. It's a weed I love: it is really green, velvety and remains in a low compact mound that flowers and fruits non stop. It looks pretty on the roadsides here in our area.

Is that the same as Tropical Soda Apple?
It is on the list of invasive weeds here in GA.

Interesting PL. Last year when I was researching this plant all references said the invasive plants had red fruit and is called Tropical Soda Apple. When I Googled yesterday all references tend to put S capsicoides as the red fruit and S viarum as the yellow fruited nuisance. I'm going to do some more digging, see what I come up with.

This is one of the things I'm enjoying most about entering info into the PDB. While offering information, we are also doing research that helps us learn more about our own plants. It can surely be frustrating at times, but in the long run, so worthwhile!

Now you two have me going on whether this is the exotic invasive or not. I will now have to ask for information at my next meeting of Native Plant Society. I remember one guy digging up a couple of these thorny things at the airport when we did a plant rescue. I only remember it had a lot of thorns. I've never seen the fruit before. He just called it soda apple. Oh, the trouble of common names!

Thanks BG, that would be a big help. I just had to ID this plant when I saw it on the side of the road last year, I know I'm not crazy about what I read...or maybe I am...Haha!

Next meeting is next Tues. I will ask--if I remember.

This plant is the invasive Tropical Soda Apple (TSA) with the yellow fruit, Solanum viarum. This is not S. capsicoides which has a red fruit. The ISB Atlas of FL Vascular plants has some good images of Soda Apple: http://www.plantatlas.usf.edu/images.asp?plantID=609#If you are able, remove the fruits and spray the plant with herbicides. Here is a University of Florida article that discusses how to destroy the plants and such: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_WG201

Thanks BG, I sent an error report to the DG team to relocate the pictures to S viarum. Man, all that research last year...LOL