Aubergine
Solanum melongena · Nightshade family
Plant portrait
Aubergines carry broad leaves and violet flowers, followed by fruits capped with a green calyx. Varieties produce round or elongated fruits in purple, white or sometimes green.
Harvested part
The fruits of cultivated aubergines.
What to watch for
Watch flowers open and fruits swell beneath their calyx. Skin gloss and the variety’s characteristic shape help you see how it develops; the model’s purple colour is not universal.
Growth stages of the aubergine
Plotilo illustrates the aubergine in 7 stages in 3D: seed, small sprout, young plant, growing, flowering, developing fruit and harvest. The models show typical shapes; they do not predict how long growth takes.
- Seed
Starting from a seed. It is shown on the surface to make it visible in this illustration.
- Small sprout
A short first stem and its first small leaves emerge.
- Young plant
The young plant carries more leaves and starts to take its own shape.
- Growing
Leaves and stems develop. Their shape depends on the species.
- Flowering
Flowers are shown before fruit begins to form.
- Developing fruit
Fruit begins to develop on the plant.
- Harvest
An illustration of the harvested part. Roots are made visible for clarity; this image does not confirm actual maturity.
Same botanical family
Same botanical family as the aubergine (the nightshade family): the tomato, the pepper, the litchi tomato, the chilli pepper, the pepino, the potato and 1 more plants from the catalogue. Gardeners usually avoid growing the same family in the same spot several years in a row: that is the idea behind crop rotation.