Looks like a young eggplant. But I've never heard of an eggplant plant spontaneously popping up in someone's garden. Joe

Thank you very much. I really liked this and I will be looking next spring to buy one for planting in my yard.

I think, it is in the family Zingiberaceae (a ginger), maybe a Curcuma species.

Years ago, my college library had something like this for newspapers. Each newspaper section was slid over one section of the rod, then the rod was hung horizontally on a rack kind of like the racks that hold fabric bolts. Boy, that description is clear as mud! The rod kept the entire edition together and allowed readers to hold and read it easily. As I recall, there was something similar but smaller for magazines. Is your rod the right length to hold a newspaper?