Solanum carolinense
species of plant
Solanum carolinense, the Carolina horsenettle, is not a true nettle, but a member of the Solanaceae, or nightshade family. It is a perennial herbaceous plant, native to the southeastern United States, though its range has expanded throughout much of temperate North America. The plant is considered to be invasive in parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. The stem and undersides of larger leaf veins are covered with prickles.
"Horsenettle" is also written "horse nettle" or "horse-nettle", though USDA publications usually use the one-word form. Though there are other horsenettle nightshades, S. carolinense is the species most commonly called "the horsenettle". Other common names include radical weed, sand brier or briar, bull nettle, tread-softly, Solanum mammosum ("apple of Sodom"), devil's tomato and wild tomato.
Description
The leaves are alternate, elliptic-oblong to oval, 6 to 11 centimetres (2+1⁄2 to 4+1⁄2 inches) long, and each is irregularly lobed or coarsely toothed. Both surfaces are covered with fine hairs. The leaves smell like potatoes when crushed.
“Solanum carolinense” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Solanum, carolinense and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Solanum carolinense” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Solanum, carolinense and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1044376. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Solanum carolinense” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.