How do you recognise Eggplant (Solanum melongena)?

Leaf

Ping an Chang, wikimedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Eggplant

Solanum melongena L.

Also known as: Aubergine

Family: Solanaceae

50 cm to 1 m tall

Grown in vegetable gardens, under cover or outdoors in warm climates

Flowering: June – September

Full sun

Not hardy, very frost-sensitive, grown as an annual

❓ How do you recognise this plant?

Like the tomato and the potato, the aubergine belongs to the nightshade family (Solanaceae) — its fruits are botanically berries, like the tomato. The violet star-shaped flowers with a centre of yellow stamens look very alike in aubergine and in purple-flowered potato varieties — the same floral architecture as in all cultivated Solanaceae. It is the foliage (entire and downy in aubergine, deeply cut in potato) and above all the fruit that tell them apart unambiguously.

🍃 Leaves

Large, ovate, slightly downy, sometimes spiny on the midrib

🌸 Flowers

Violet, with 5 petals fused into a star

🍎 Fruits

Large elongated or ovate berry, dark violet to glossy black (sometimes white or striped depending on the variety)

🪵 Bark

Sturdy herbaceous stem, sometimes slightly spiny

🗺️ Distribution

Native to Asia; grown in France notably in the south

🐝 Value for pollinators

Flowers pollinated mainly by buzz pollination (bumblebees), like the tomato

✂️ Horticultural uses

Fruiting vegetable for the kitchen garden, grown for its fruit eaten cooked

⚠️ Possible toxicity

The ripe fruit is edible. The green parts contain glycoalkaloids and are not meant to be eaten in large quantities.

⚠️ Look-alike species

Eggplant

Solanum melongena

Potato

Solanum tuberosum

The violet star-shaped flowers with a centre of yellow stamens look very alike in aubergine and in purple-flowered potato varieties — the same floral architecture as in all cultivated Solanaceae. It is the foliage (entire and downy in aubergine, deeply cut in potato) and above all the fruit that tell them apart unambiguously.

🌿 Other Solanaceae to discover

ℹ️ Educational profile — do not use it to judge whether a plant is edible or safe.

🌱 This database is constantly evolving — species and information are added and corrected regularly. Spotted a mistake? Report it below.