What is "solanum nigrum"

Solanine \Sol"a*nine\, n. [L. solanum nightshade.] (Chem.) A poisonous alkaloid glucoside extracted from the berries of common nightshade ( Solanum nigrum), and of bittersweet, and from potato sprouts, as a white crystalline substance having an acrid, burning taste; -- called also solonia, and solanina.

Nightshade \Night"shade`\, n. [AS. nichtscadu.] (Bot.) A common name of many species of the genus Solanum, given esp. to the Solanum nigrum, or black nightshade, a low, branching weed with small white flowers and black berries reputed to be poisonous.

Deadly nightshade. Same as Belladonna (a) .

Enchanter's nightshade. See under Enchanter.

Stinking nightshade. See Henbane.

Three-leaved nightshade. See Trillium.

European black nightshade (Solanum nigrum) or locally just black nightshade, duscle, garden nightshade, garden huckleberry, hound's berry, petty morel, wonder berry, small-fruited black nightshade, or popolo) is a species in the Solanum genus, native to Eurasia and introduced in the Americas, Australasia, and South Africa. Parts of this plant can be toxic to livestock and humans. Nonetheless, ripe berries and cooked leaves of edible strains are used as food in some locales, and plant parts are used as a traditional medicine. A tendency exists in literature to incorrectly refer to many of the other "black nightshade" species as "Solanum nigrum".

Solanum nigrum has been recorded from deposits of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic era of ancient Britain and it is suggested by the botanist and ecologist Edward Salisbury that it was part of the native flora there before Neolithic agriculture emerged. The species was mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the first century AD and by the great herbalists, including Dioscorides. In 1753, Carl Linnaeus described six varieties of Solanum nigrum in Species Plantarum.