Solanum seaforthianum, the slender potato creeper from America

Solanum seaforthianum is known as the slender potato creeper. It also crept stealthily but rampantly and without permission from South African gardens where it was introduced long ago without licence from tropical America. Today it is a declared weed that must be eradicated wherever found.

The guilty party who brought this plant illegally into South Africa is probably long dead, his or her offspring sharing the burden of a country brimming with unwanted weeds that suffocate indigenous species and gulp water.

The photo was taken in the Mjejane Game Reserve during April (Pooley, 1998; Van Wyk and Malan, 1997).