This article is about the Solanum ellipticum described by F. von Mueller

Ferdinand von Mueller

Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, KCMG was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist.-Early life:...

. The plant named thus by J.M. de Conceição Vellozo

José Mariano de Conceição Vellozo

José Mariano de Conceição Vellozo was a Brazilian botanist who catalogued specimens, for example: Cedrela fissilis Vell. in Florae Fluminensis...

 is actually S. cylindricum.

Solanum ellipticum is known as Potato Bush and under the more ambiguous name of "bush tomato

Bush tomato

The term bush tomato refers to the fruit or entire plants of certain nightshade species native to the more arid parts of Australia. While they are quite closely related to tomatoes , they might be even closer relatives of the eggplant , which they resemble in many details...

". The Arrernte

Arrernte people

The Arrernte people , known in English as the Aranda or Arunta, are those Indigenous Australians who are the original custodians of Arrernte lands in the central area of Australia around Mparntwe or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The Arrernte tribe has lived there for more than 20,000 years...

 name of merne awele-awele might refer to this species, and/or to the similar S. quadriloculatum

Solanum quadriloculatum

Solanum quadriloculatum is known under the common names of "bush tomato" or "wild tomato". It is a small fruiting shrub in the Solanaceae family. It was and occasionally still is included in S...

. Native to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, the Potato Bush is a small fruiting shrub in the Solanaceae

Solanaceae

Solanaceae are a family of flowering plants that include a number of important agricultural crops as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear...

 family.

It a small fast-growing waxy-looking shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 that grows next to creeks. It fruits prolifically the year after fire or good rains. Its fruit have a pungent smell, and the plant can be smelled from some distance away when the fruit are ripe. Like the other "bush tomatoes", S. ellipticum fruit are edible raw or cooked.

S. ellipticum used to (and in some treatments still does) include S. quadriloculatum as variety duribaccalis, but generally these two species of "bush tomatoes" are considered distinct nowadays. Similarly, the former variety horridum is now S. senticosum, the S. echinatum of Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

 was sometimes treated as var. pannifolium, and S. esuriale was included in S. ellipticum as form

Form (botany)

In botanical nomenclature, a form is one of the "secondary" taxonomic ranks, below that of variety, which in turn is below that of species; it is an infraspecific taxon...

 inermis.

A few now-invalid names for S. ellipticum also exist; mostly they refer to potatobush plants believed to be distinct forms or varieties but today not considered to be taxonomically distinct:

• Solanum ellipticum f. albiflora Domin (lapsus
  Lapsus
  A lapsus is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. According to Freud's early psychoanalytic theory, a lapsus represents a missed deed that hides an unconscious desire....
  
  )
• Solanum ellipticum f. albiflorum Domin
• Solanum ellipticum var. chillagoense Domin
• Solanum ellipticum var. mollibaccalis J.M.Black
• Solanum lithophilum F.Muell.
• Solanum cleistogamum