Tasmanian Kangaroo Apple (hardy to zone 9, maybe zone 8?)

[NickD]

Some photos of my Kangaroo Apple (solanum laciniatum) plants. I would describe it as an edible ornamental.

Very thick (about 5cm) and rigid deep purple stem with big dark green leaves and pretty purple flowers. The flowers look similar to eggplant flowers, but much larger (about 5cm). Unlike other flowering plants where individual petals drop to the ground separately, with Kangaroo Apple, the whole flower parachutes down to decorate the ground in intact form.

The fruits are toxic when unripe, but then turn from green to yellow to orange. When they're orange and separate from the stem easily, they are ripe, and taste like a mix of eggplant, tomato/tamarillo and apricot - sweet, bitter and sour, and seedy. Mind you, my fruits only began to ripen after the frost, maybe if they had ripened earlier in the season the taste would be different.

The plants are semi-hardy, light frosts didn't do any damage, and even with several frosts of -5C to -4C, only tips of the stems, flowers and smaller fruits were damaged, most of the stems and leaves were still in good condition, and larger fruits approaching maturity appeared to have been undamaged as well.

I started my plants a bit late - sowing seeds in late April and only transplanting them in mid June. However, they grow very fast, so they reached a height of 7ft only about 2.5 months from transplanting. The fruits are slow to develop though, taking 4-5 months to ripen from the transplanting date. I'll try to overwinter some in a pot (I'm in zone 5) and see if that helps them hit the ground running earlier in the season - they should be okay to go outside in early May even if we get a light frost due to being semi-hardy.