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Solanum aethiopicum; photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2008-10-05

Solanum aethiopicum L.

Chinese scarlet eggplant; Ethiopian nightshade; Gilo; Kumba

Solanaceae · Eritrea, Ethiopia

No habitat climate
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Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Solanum aethiopicum, photograph (c) Steven Bodzin, some rights reserved (CC BY) 17 photographs ›

Summary

Solanum aethiopicum, the bitter tomato, Ethiopian eggplant, or nakati, is a fruiting plant of the genus Solanum mainly found in Asia and Tropical Africa. It is also known as Ethiopian nightshade, garden eggs, pumpkin-on-a-stick, and mock tomato. It is a popular vegetable in north-east India, and is known as khamen akhaba in Manipuri and samṭawk in Mizo. They are called Titay bii or simply bii in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Nepal, and are relished with meat, particularly pork. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Solanum aethiopicum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Solanum

Solanum is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, which include three food crops of high economic importance: the potato, the tomato and the eggplant. It is the largest genus in the nightshade family Solanaceae, comprising around 1,500 species. It also contains the so-called horse nettles, as well as numerous plants cultivated for their ornamental flowers and fruit.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Solanum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 1 in-range record, none placed to within 10 km. 1 of the 1 in-range records is placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though it counts for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeEritrea, Ethiopia · introduced: Egypt, Benin, Burkina, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Rwanda, Zaïre, Chad, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, China South-Central, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Windward Is., Brazil West-Central · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Kew's description“subshrub or shrub” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on the one georeferenced record inside the native range, openly licensed and shown on the map. 704 records outside the WCVP native range not used. Under a dozen records behind the map. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stays on the map but off the climate.

Photographs

Solanum aethiopicum, photograph 1did not loadSolanum aethiopicum, photograph 2did not loadSolanum aethiopicum, photograph 3did not loadSolanum aethiopicum, photograph 4did not loadSolanum aethiopicum, photograph 5did not loadSolanum aethiopicum, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Steven Bodzin, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Other Solanum 163 in the reference

Solanum abutiloides Solanum abutiloides Dwarf Tamarillo Photo: CC BY-SA, Greg TasneySolanum acaule Solanum acaule Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, Staci OréSolanum aculeastrum Solanum aculeastrum Goat Bitter-apple Photo: CC0, author not statedSolanum aculeatissimum Solanum aculeatissimum Dutch eggplant Photo: CC BY-SA, Tony RebeloSolanum africanum Solanum africanum Solanaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Tony Rebelo Solanum ajanhuiri Solanaceae Solanum albidum Solanum albidum Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, biped_cubSolanum aligerum Solanum aligerum Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, Juan Carlos Fonseca MataSolanum aloysiifolium Solanum aloysiifolium Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, Carla Florencia RodríguezSolanum americanum Solanum americanum American black nightshade Photo: CC BY, Frederick NunleySolanum amygdalifolium Solanum amygdalifolium Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, Holger BraunSolanum anguivi Solanum anguivi Forest Bitterberry Photo: CC BY-SA, alanbedfordshaw all 164 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Lycopersicon aethiopicum; Pseudocapsicum torulosum; Solanum aethiopicum var. aculeatum; Solanum aethiopicum var. armatum; Solanum aethiopicum var. giorgii and 58 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Under another author Solanum albidum DeWild. is an older name of this species, not Solanum albidum, a species of the reference; Solanum elaeagnifolium Willd. and Solanum elaeagnifolium Willd. ex Steud. is an older name of this species, not Solanum elaeagnifolium, a species of the reference; Solanum scabrum Jacq. and Solanum scabrum Zuccagni is an older name of this species, not Solanum scabrum, a species of the reference. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Solanaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Eritrea, Ethiopia
Wild records
1 in range · 1 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 19 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (8 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 1 at a herbarium, 10 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-221 in-range record, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 69 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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