Kangaroo-apple

Solanum aviculare, known as kangaroo apple or by the Maori name poroporo, is a fast-growing soft-wooded shrub of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) native to New Zealand and eastern Australia. It reaches two to four metres, with smooth green stems and large, glossy dark-green leaves that are markedly variable, some entire and lance-shaped, others deeply pinnately lobed, often on the same plant. The showy flowers are blue to violet, occasionally white, broadly star-shaped and around two to four centimetres across, with a central cone of bright yellow anthers, borne in loose clusters through much of the year. The fruit is an ovoid berry that ripens from green through yellow to orange-red, the green unripe fruit and all green parts being poisonous while the fully ripe fruit becomes edible. A pioneer of forest margins, clearings and disturbed ground, it is also a commercial source of the steroidal alkaloid solasodine.