The Arrernte name of merne awele-awele might refer to this species or to the similar S. quadriloculatum.

Native to Australia, the potato bush is a small fruiting shrub in the family Solanaceae.

Like the other "bush tomatoes", S. ellipticum fruit are edible raw or cooked.

Solanum ellipticum used to (and in some treatments still does) include S. quadriloculatum as variety duribaccalis, but generally these two species of "bush tomatoes" are considered distinct nowadays.

Similarly, the former variety horridum is now S. senticosum, the S. echinatum of Robert Brown was sometimes treated as var.