Flowers in the Garden ~ Nightshades

I may be showing my age by saying this, but when I was in school, I was one of the nerds. I think today the equivalent term would be geek. (Or is even that old school now?) Anyway, age has not changed me, and I now apply my nerdiness to gardening. Well, I thought it would be interesting to compare the flowers in my garden based on plant families. I’m sure I’m not the only Gardening Geek out there, so I’m going to share my comparison photos with you in a series of four articles. Today, we’ll look at the nightshade family.

The nightshade family includes tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, eggplant, and potatoes. I have grown varieties of each of those plants, and it’s been fun pulling up these garden photos from the past three summers.

Let’s see if we see similarities in the flowers.

TOMATOES:

Every variety of tomato I have grown had yellow flowers with pointed petals.

Mortgage Lifter tomato flower

PEPPERS:

Most sweet and chili peppers have white flowers, but a couple of varieties I grow are different. One is white with purple trim, and one is all purple. Although the colors are different, the shape of the flowers are similar.

Notice how the pointed petals and the way the flowers droop are similar to the tomato flower.

Green bell pepper flower

Rocoto pepper flowers

Filius Blue pepper flower

TOMATILLO:

It’s not a tomato, but it is a nightshade. The flower’s form is a bit different from tomato and pepper flowers and more similar to potato and eggplant flowers; but the flower does have the same drooping habit of all the nightshades.

Tomatillo flower

EGGPLANT:

The eggplant flower has more petals than the tomatillo, but its petals seem to ripple like the tomatillo flower’s do.

Black Beauty eggplant flower

POTATOES:

Often, the color of the potato flower matches the color of the potato’s flesh. I found that to be true with the ones I grow. Although the colors are different, the flowers are similar. And their petals are rounded and flowing like the tomatillo’s and eggplant’s.