Hi, I am wondering if someone can identify this weed? It grows mostly in dry, unirrigated dirt. It can grow to about 12-15 inches tall but is usually somewhat less. It has beautiful blue flowers with bright yellow stamens (at least they look like stamens; I'm no expert), the petals of which remind me a bit of African violets in the way they shimmer. The main stem and most of the leaf stems are covered in small stiff spines, and some of the leaves even have a row of spines running down the center vein (upper surface). In the fall this plant develops clusters of fruits that look like small grape-sized watermelons. If it weren't for the intensely prickly nature I'd welcome it into our garden, but as it is, those spines can go right through even my leather gardening gloves so I don't encourage it. Any ideas? (Thanks!)
Oooh, I think that's it! At first I thought it was Solanum carolinense, but the flower's color is wrong. It is interesting, though, that there are evidently regional variations of Solanum elaeagnifolium. For example, this site: www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/plant...a/magnoliopsida/solanaceae/solanum/index.html shows Solanum elaeagnifolium from Arizona and from Greece. The AZ variation is very much like the one in my photo, with heavily crinkled leaf edges and very obvious dense distribution of spines. The Greek variation, by contrast, has more straight-edged leaves and very little evidence of prickles at all. Thanks so much for your help!
