Nightshade berries!!!! 🍅🍅🍅🍅 Pretty sure this is Solanum Douglasii! It popped up in an area where I was trying to plant more catnip, and I let it grow to find out what it was (it looked like a tomato plant, but didn't smell like a tomato plant - they're still in the same nightshade family, though!) I must have stirred up a long dormant seed when I cleared the area and tilled the soil! I read about this plant earlier this year, funny it would come up now as, I haven't seen them around here before, despite being a 'native' plant to all California. It's documented that my Chumash ancestors would eat the (ripened, black) nightshade berries, along with using the crushed leaves mixed with salt to soothe a poison oak rash. The berries also could treat sore eyes, and the leaves could be used to induce vomiting. ((The Chumash were especially fond of inducing vomiting, I learned lol. It was A Thing to do daily, especially before a meal. Funny how I can't even induce vomiting in a semi-urgent scenario, as I learned when I accidentally swallowed a fish bone lmao. Guess it's not inherited.)) Juice from the leaves was also mixed with yucca charcoal to make tattoos using cactus needles. 🌵🌵🌵🌵 Anyway, if I'm right, these berries will turn black, and I will sample one and save seeds, if the birds don't notice them first. I'm doing my research. All nightshades have toxic elements, including tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant... That's why avoiding them tends to be recommended for an anti-inflammatory diet ((which I should be doing rip))... For the black nightshade plant sub-family (genus? idk) specifically, though, the berries are toxic until they ripen and turn completely black. The same way you're not supposed to eat a green potato. It's a different plant than the famous Deadly Nightshade/Belladonna, which is the one where the poisonous ripe berries were used as an anesthetic in other regions. 🚫 Disclaimer: Do not eat random berries, this is not medical advice, lol. 🚫 #solanumdouglasii #solanumnigrum #nightshade #blacknightshade #blacknightshadeberries #nightshadeberries #solanum #solanaceae #garden #gardening #california #berries #plants #blooms #flowers #chumash (sa Santa Barbara County, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CDfRfRJA_PW/?igshid=32kmulyhifkf