Pea eggplant

Solanum torvum is a bushy, erect, spiny perennial shrub in the family Solanaceae, typically reaching 2 to 3 m in height. Twigs and young stems are gray-green and clothed in stellate (star-shaped) hairs, often armed with short curved prickles. Leaves are alternate, broadly ovate, 7 to 23 cm long, with lobed or sinuate margins and stellate pubescence on both surfaces. The white, tubular-stellate flowers are borne in lateral cymose clusters and give rise to small, globose berries that are green when immature and ripen to dull yellow, each containing many flattened seeds embedded in juicy pulp. The species is native to a broad range extending from southern Florida and Alabama through the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and tropical South America to Brazil, and has naturalized widely throughout tropical Africa, Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It grows rapidly in disturbed ground, in full sun to partial shade, but cannot persist under closed forest canopy.