Friday 5 August 2011

Woody Nightshade

Woody Nightshade, aka Bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara. Hutchinson's Bank, 2 August 2011.
Woody Nightshade, aka Bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara.  Hutchinson's Bank, 2 August 2011.
Sprays of this small but colourful flower crop up all around, in hedgerows, scrub and waysides. It's a Solanum, and like most of that group, the berries are poisonous, but all you have to do is not eat them. From one of their names, it sounds as though someone has tried.  Tomatoes are also a Solanum species, an interesting exception! So are potatoes, which are not an exception; they bear poisonous berries.
Posted by Bill Welch at 05:00
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1 comment:

  1. teegee5 August 2011 at 05:21

    What lovely fin de siècle, belle epoque jewels! to be worn by one of those temptress ladies in the paintings of the era. Dante Gabriel Rosetti, was it?
    These also grow in California, where as toddlers we were taught NOT to eat them just because they are pretty (just as black widows spiders have red hourglass shapes on the underside).

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