Photo and Variety name?

It was labeled “Black beauty”

I know there can be spines on the eggplant cap/stem...just never saw them on leaves. Can’t wait to see what develops from this plant. Thanks!

I've had a couple of varieties that had spikes on the leaves also, but at the moment I can not remember what they were.

Eggplant is a species of Solanum and there are scads of solanums with spikey leaves and/or very thorny stems - some ferociously so - so I would not be overly surprised to find an eggplant that showed these features. That's pretty mild compared to some :-)

I've seen thorns on other eggplant (usually white varieties), but seldom on the leaves. I do grow a cultivar from the Philippines, though, which has thorns on all green surfaces... high production, but I need leather gloves with gauntlets to pick them. ;-)

I grew pumpkin on a stick which is in the African eggplant group...different species that Black Beauty and their ilk. It had lots of thorns on it and looked similar to yours.

My eggplant had no spikes at all and never fruited

Could be a turkish variety... i think i recall just reading something about this somewhere. can't recall where i read it though. like everyone else has mentioned this is a trait that is native that has been "bread out"

"My eggplant had no spikes at all and never fruited"

Did the plants even flower? Spines are most common on the calyx (stem end) of the developing fruit. If the plants did not flower, that is a separate issue, with many possible causes best discussed on a different thread.

If you like that feature in Solanaceae, some of the more tropical edible species (naranjilla, etc.) have elegantly wicked leaf-vein thorns. Could grow as annuals or potted. One might describe it as a "throwback" "-- but don't sit back on it!"

Wow! The picture of those leaves bring back memories. A yellow variety locally known as Terung Asam Sarawak (aka Terung Dayak) used to self seed in our garden back when I was growing up in the tropics. They are sour/bitter tasting, and are great for cooking fish curries. Their leaves are well armed with spikes. Which makes it strikingly different from the other "traditional" cultivated varieties in the garden.

I think it may be pea eggplant or Turkey berry. The plant is used as a rootstock to graft eggplant as it is very cold hard. I could be wrong.

@figtree24de what did this end up being?

We have these thorny eggplants here in southern part of India. We only knew these thorny brinjal varieties before hybrid varieties entered the markets in 1990s. We have a few thorny varieties here in north Karnataka in southern part of India. Even the eggplant have thorns on them. They taste best for me. These are a rarity now and cost more. We grow them at home. Some times healthy plants would have 1 cm long thorns on leaves. We make our own seeds at home because nowadays finding seeds is becoming difficult.

I have a brinjal plant with spikey leaves in my home in South India.

I knew I planted seeds of eggplant bought commercially, but when it fully grew maturedly I noticed thorny spikes around its trunk which was about 1.2 meters high, waited for it to bear fruits, but unfortunately it only bore flowers that never developed into a full grown eggplant, until others tried killing it, several times, but it's always resprouting and regrowing. Just curious about that eggplant-like plant.

My eggplants are all developing slines on their leaves this season, something i have never seen before. a google search brought me to this thread. in glad to read about some of these old varieties. mine was labled as an Asian heirloom. I’m eager to see what the fruit will be like.

The eggplant varieties I have grown have always have spines on the stems; I don't recall whether they were on the leaves. But I know always to wear gloves when working with them or I will get poked -- they are spine-y spines!

We bought a package of black beauty eggplant . All but one grew fine. The one has needles or spikes on leaves. I'm finding getting by them is giving Me an allergic reaction. Looking online some say they are