Silverleaf nightshade fruits

Click for greater clarity.

Near the coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, that appeared in the last two photographs (and that softly lights up the background of this one), I found some fruits of silverleaf nightshade, Solanum elaeagnifolium, at the Arbor Walk Pond in north Austin on December 4, 2013.

In one sort of illusion, the bright fruits may appear to be partly in front of the darker picture plane. In a different kind of illusion, you may imagine that you’re looking at two planetary orbs.

In early December there were still lots of silverleaf nightshade flowers around Austin, but the first freeze soon put an end to all of them. In a third type of illusion, you might try to picture (if you don’t already know) what sort of flowers produce the fruits shown here; you can see how close you came by checking a photograph from 2011.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman