Please help identify this thorny plant. It also has thorns on stems and on its leaves and green fruit that grows in lines. It is difficult to pull up and seemingly has runners below the soil.

I thought my kids were grabbing still green grape tomatoes, but I think they actually sampled these. Google searches suggest Thai eggplant, but I'm not convinced that's right.

I appreciate the help!

It does resemble tomato, which says Nightshade, most of which are poisonous, but i am very much NOT AN EXPERT on this.

Anyone else?

That sure looks like a variety of Nightshade, compare to Horse Nettle (Solanum carolinense) whose fruit is said to be poisonous.

More information on this Virginia Wildflowers page: https://virginiawildflowers.or....

@plantladylin thank you! Yes, these look like what I see. Although I've never seen their fruit change color from green. Probably because I've always been better about getting stuff pulled out than I have this summer. Guess I have some work to do.

The fruit does resemble Solanum spp, but which of those leaves are connected to the fruit? Looks like a few different plants in there. ?

The plant in above pictures is definitely horse nettle...
The other plants in the pic don't produce berries.

Horse nettle contains solanine, a toxic alkaloid. All parts of horse nettle are poisonous, and ingestion of the fruit can cause death. Symptoms of poisoning include fever, headache, a scratchy feeling in the throat followed by nause, vomiting, and diarrhea. Ingestion of the unripe fruit causes abdominal pain and can cause circulatory and respiratory depression

https://sites.google.com/a/geo...

I can't imagine eating these berries... they can't taste good... Are you sure they're not just pretending to eat them?

Horse nettle is a good plant to discourage...
I can usually get a good grip on the plant at ground level and pull out without getting stuck by the thorns... unfortunately, the roots don't pull out of the ground. I have found that pulling on sight reduces the survival of horse nettle over time.

Let us know that your kids are okay!

Thank you everyone! After probing the older one, she claims they were eating off the tomato plants. They've had no symptoms. I'll have to.be more vigilant when we're outside and just make sure I devote more time to pulling out.

I would have taken the kids and the plant to urgent care.

Seriously!?! If you are unsure of what you're growing!?!? Urgent care! Immediately!!!

Bschmuck said: Thank you everyone! After probing the older one, she claims they were eating off the tomato plants.

They've had no symptoms.

Yeah... as a kid, I ate plenty of cherry tomatoes, and with horse nettle growing commonly enough... never once considered tasting horse nettle fruit...
Also never considered eating the potato berries... Nor even the poke berries... although I may have gotten purple juice on me...

Unlike the other posters on this thread, I wouldn't expect kids to put toxic stuff in their mouths,,, and even if they did... they would spit it out PDQ.

Have you ever seen kids eat vegetables they took a dislike to?
Little children are just not that willing to try stuff.

Now... little babies on the other hand...
Everything goes into mouth...