Nightshade

Nightshade is the second plant obtained in Modern Day in Plants vs. Zombies 2. It will slap any zombies in front of it with its leaves but can only do this three times and can only do so at close range. If powered by a Moonflower, it gains the ability to regrow and hurl these leaves at zombies, effectively turning it into a long-ranged offensive plant instead of a melee plant. However, thrown leaves do less damage compared to leaves slapping a zombie.

Origins
It is based on the Solanaceae, which is an economically important family of flowering plants, known as climbing nightshades.

Its appearance may be based on Solanum dulcamara, with its leaves being based on the purple petals and its cap being based on the reproductive part of the flower.

Plant Food effect
When fed with Plant Food, Nightshade will regrow all of its leaves, then hurl three large leaves at zombies. Each large leaf deals 30 normal damage shots, similar to the large pea Repeater shoots at the end of its Plant Food effect. Additionally, after performing the effect, all leaves thrown by Nightshade will deal 7.5 normal damage shots instead of 5.

The leaves the Nightshade uses will now remain as the powered color, and also have changed damage when in both melee and ranged form. In melee form, it is capable of defeating a Conehead Zombie with one leaf, and a Buckethead Zombie with three leaves. Its ranged leaves deal eight normal damage shots per leaf (tombstones enter their second degrade when hit with one leaf, which occurs at eight normal damage shots).

Strategies
Nightshade's main strength is its high potential effectiveness for its fairly low price of 75 sun. When powered by Moonflower, a Nightshade can deal almost three times as much damage as an average Peashooter, and will, therefore, have little problem can make much quicker work of Basic and Buckethead Zombies. This ability could also be considered a downside, however, as Nightshade is heavily dependent on Moonflower which is a plant with a relatively slow recharge rate, and Nightshade's performance when not powered is below average due to it not being able to regrow its leaves. Nightshade also faces great challenges in the world it is introduced in, as the amount of methods used by the horde to deter straight-shooting projectiles, plus the sheer zombie density can render even the most powerful of single target plants insignificant. The newest update essentially made this plant obsolete, as it has a very long recharge now, and is not worth using. There are better options to use than Nightshade. This also made Day 9 of Modern Day nearly impossible without leveling Nightshade up.

Melon-pult and Cactus are essentially better choices to use than Nightshade due to their moderate to heavy damage and short recharge time.

Trivia

 * In the 5.7.1 update, its seed packet recharge time was changed from 5 seconds to 24 seconds.
 * It reuses attacking sounds from Cactus.
 * It also reuses the Plant Food effect sound from Wall-nut and Tall-nut when it uses Plant Food.
 * When it is not powered, it sometimes have powered leaves instead of the basic purple leaves.
 * When it attacks whether powered or not, its leaves turn purple. This is only a visual error.
 * However, if fed Plant Food, its leaves remain as the powered leaves.
 * If one looks closely, its costume slightly shakes during its idle animation.
 * This is because every other animation loop, it blinks its eyes. This causes the shades to shake a little because of the blink.
 * It resembles Bloomerang in terms of appearance.
 * It, along with Red Stinger and Spikerock, are the only plants that cannot be repaired with Wall-nut First Aid, despite visually degrading.