Onti
Solanum nigrum · Black nightshade
- Names in the book
- Hierba mora, Sp.; Konty, Onty, Gamagamatisan, Tag.; Lagpakon, Bolagtob, Lubilubi, Vis.; Kuty, Lubilubi, Bic.; Black or Common Nightshade, Eng.
- Colours
- flowerwhitefruitblack
- Native range
- Eurasia
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Universally common. Blooms in January.
- Family
- Solanaceae, filed in the book under Solanaceæ
- Printed as
- Solanum nigrum, L.
- Sources
- Page 176 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
The plant today
Solanum nigrum, the European black nightshade or simply black nightshade or blackberry nightshade, is a species of flowering plant in the family Solanaceae, native to Eurasia and introduced in the Americas, Australasia, and South Africa. Ripe berries and cooked leaves of edible strains are used as food in some locales, and plant parts are used as a traditional medicine.
Excerpt from “Solanum nigrum” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 125 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 15 provinces, most often Zamboanga del Norte (7), Batanes (4), Laguna (2), Quezon (2), Batangas (1), Benguet (1), Bukidnon (1), Bulacan (1), and 7 more.
Counts from GBIF occurrence records, October 2026. They include planted trees and garden plants, and a province with no records may only lack collectors.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
In the Philippines the entire plant is boiled and used for food, with the precaution of pouring off the first 2 or 3 waters in which it is cooked, which contain an active principle capable of causing such disagreeable symptoms as vertigo and nausea. A decoction of the leaves serves to cleanse chronic sores and in fact improves their condition; it is also used as a lotion for various forms of dermatitis, for erysipelas and old burns.
The plant is narcotic, antispasmodic and like belladonna it dilates the pupil.
In India the decoction is given internally, 200–250 grams, for hypertrophy of the liver, and it is considered a good diuretic and alterative. For such uses they heat the above dose in a clay vessel till the color changes from green to brown, when it is cooled and given next day. Its action is diuretic and hydragogue-cathartic. Mooden Sheriff recommends this treatment highly, and for dropsy further advises the aqueous extract, 12 grams during the day divided into 3 or 4 doses. Small doses of 30–60 grams of the decoction prepared as above described, are of use in some chronic skin diseases such as psoriasis.
In 1821 Defosses, of Besançon, obtained solanine from the fruit, previously isolated from the S. Dulcamara.
Botanical description
A plant about 2° high, stem straight, 3–4-angled, with white dots. Leaves lanceolate. Flowers white, in 2-ranked racemes. Calyx inferior, 5 persistent teeth. Corolla, 5 petals somewhat down-curved. Berry small, black when ripe.
Recent research
The most cited papers since 2022 that name this plant in the title, pulled from Europe PMC in October 2026. Titles are the authors' own and the findings have not been reviewed here.
- Comparative cytology combined with transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses of Solanum nigrum L. in response to Cd toxicity
- Isolation of plant-derived exosome-like nanoparticles (PDENs) from Solanum nigrum L. berries and Their Effect on interleukin-6 expression as a potential anti-inflammatory agent
- Plant growth promoting endophyte promotes cadmium accumulation in Solanum nigrum L. by regulating plant homeostasis