Solanum prinophyllum

Solanum prinophyllum, the forest nightshade, is a soft prickly shrub of the family Solanaceae, native to eastern Australia where it occurs in moist sclerophyll forest and rainforest margins from Queensland through New South Wales to Victoria. Plants are short-lived perennials reaching 0.5 to 1.5 metres in height, with stems and leaf veins armed with slender straight or slightly curved yellowish prickles and clothed in stellate hairs. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptic, often shallowly lobed or coarsely sinuate-dentate, dark green above and paler beneath, the midrib and main veins prickly on both surfaces. Inflorescences are short axillary cymes of a few star-shaped lilac to purple flowers with yellow central anthers. Fruits are small globose berries about 8 to 12 millimetres across, green at first and ripening to bright red or orange-red, like most members of the genus regarded as toxic to humans.