Salpichroa origanifolia aka Lily Of The Valley Vine

Salpichroa origanifolia is a climber that lives for years. It belongs to the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Common names include cock's eggs and pampas lily of the valley. Kew gives its home range as Peru to southern Brazil and southern South America. Useful Tropical Plants lists Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil in its range. It also notes wild plants in southeastern Australia, outside their home range. The RHS states that it is not native to Britain or Ireland.

Kew calls it a scrambling subshrub: a low plant with some woody stems. It climbs, and its growth lasts from year to year. Useful Tropical Plants gives its height as about 16.4 feet [5 metres]. That source also says it grows very fast. These accounts show that it scrambles or climbs, rather than forms a tree. They give no full-grown width or clear details of its leaves. One known place where it grows is waste ground in towns.

Bees visit the flowers and help pollinate them. The accounts give no time of year for bloom. They do not describe the flowers' shape or colour. The fruit has an egg shape and turns white or yellow. Each fruit is about 0.06 feet [0.018 metres] long. It is about 0.03 feet [0.008 metres] wide. People pick fruit from wild plants to eat. Useful Tropical Plants says local markets sell it too.

The plant grows in warm temperate and tropical regions. Records from the tropics place it above 3,281 feet [1,000 metres]. Kew calls its climate subtropical. Useful Tropical Plants says to grow it in sun and alkaline soil. Frost poses a risk to this plant in gardens. The same account warns that a freeze can kill even its fleshy roots. The evidence gives no hardiness zone or soil texture needs. It gives no plan for when to water. It lists seed as the way to grow new plants.

Only the fruit has a listed use as food. It tastes poor when raw, so people use it for preserves. This use does not show that other parts are safe. Useful Tropical Plants warns that the nightshade family has poisonous alkaloids. It says not to eat parts with no known, recorded food use. That account lists no use of the plant as medicine. The sources name no pests or diseases that affect it.