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Diary — Raupeti or Remuroa / Solanum nodiflorum / Small-flowered nightshade

Raupeti or Remuroa / Solanum nodiflorum / Small-flowered nightshade

Raupeti or Remuroa / Solanum nodiflorum / Small-flowered nightshade

Feb 23, 2022

In my experience a lot of people mistake this little native edible as deadly nightshade (of which we have very little here in NZ) and as such it's often on the receiving end of a heavy dowsing of glyphosate. This is a real shame because not only are the leaves edible but so are the ripe fruit!

Remuroa 1

Te Papa has a great blog post going into more detail and the comments section has some fantastic cultural and historic context: blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2009/04/14/black-nightshade-its-nearly-everywhere/

Remuroa 3

Plentiful ripe harvest of the remuroa berries.

Remuroa 4

The Hadda Beetle (Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata) loves to consume almost anything herbaceous in the solanum family. In my garden I find they go for the native solanum before any of the exotics (Potato, tomato, eggplant). Potentially a good diversion crop if this pest beetle establishes itself further in New Zealand.