Clonal, perennial herb or undershrub to 45 cm, often sprawling, pale or rusty yellowish-green, densely pubescent with stellate hairs; prickles absent, or few and sparsely scattered on stems, 1–5 mm long.  

Leaves ovate-oblong; lamina 3–6 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, sometimes larger, concolorous, entire to slightly undulate; petiole 5–15 (sometimes 30) mm long.  

Inflorescence 1–6–flowered, peduncle absent or to 10 mm long; rachis 5–15 mm long, sometimes to 40 mm, pedicels 6–10 mm long. Calyx 4–6 mm long; lobes triangular, 1.5–2.5 mm long. Corolla stellate, 15–25 mm diam., pale or deep purple. Anthers 4.5–6.5 mm long.  

Berry globular, 10–15 mm diam., yellow, drying brown and raisin-like in appearance. Seeds 2–4 mm long, pale yellow or light brown. n=24.

Important food plant of Aborigines; fruit eaten fresh or dry. This species is the most popular of the bush tucker foods and experimental work on its culture and diversity is taking place - see web references. The role of Solanum as Aboriginal food is comprehensively discussed in P. Latz, Bushfires & Bushtucker, IAD Press, Alice Springs (1995).

Take care if you are contemplating eating the berries of a Solanum species - some of the many species are toxic and they can be easily confused with S. centrale.

Bean (2004) has added this species to the list of Solanum spp. occurring in Qld. There must be some doubt about his identification since the Qld material differs in characters documented for the ovary (stellate hairy according to Symon 1981, glabrous according to Bean); a glabrous ovary is one of the distinguishing characters Bean lists for recognising S. centrale from his newly described and closely related, S. jucundum .