Last updated on 26 August 2024:

There were 19 members from this family listed in the 2009 Singapore flora checklist. Among them, only 4 were assigned the naturalised status, meaning they could be found growing without human intervention in the wild. The 4 were Solanum americanum, Solanum lasiocarpum, Solanum sarmentosum and Solanum torvum. Based on my observation over the years, the mentioned status might not be totally correct.

(1) Solanum lasiocarpum: This plant is commonly known as Indian nightshade and is found in the wild in South Asia. So far, I had not encountered this plant in the wild here. In the iNaturalist website viewed on 26 August 2024, there were 151 observations globally including only one from Singapore submitted in 2024. The naturalised status was probably incorrect.

(2) Solanum sarmentosum: According to the Plants of the World Online website, this name is currently a synonym of Solanum cyanocarphium. It is a vine and information on it was scanty. Again, I doubt this plant was naturalised here.

(3) Solanum americanum and Solanum torvum: Based on my field observations, there was no doubt that these 2 species were naturalised here.

In addition, there was one member that was naturalised here but was not assign this status --- Physalis minima (Bladder Cherry), in which the current accepted name is Physalis angulata based on the Plants of the World Online website. In summary, the 3 species that were naturalised in Singapore currently should be Physalis angulata, Solanum americanum and Solanum torvum. The assignment of naturalised status to a plant could be a tricky business. Plants listed in this flora checklist were collated from previous publications dated as far back as 1990. It might be true that some of these plants were naturalised then but had gone extinct over the years.

In the more recent Singapore flora checklist published in 2022, the members in this family had drastically dropped to 8 (compared to 19 in the 2009 checklist).