Contents:
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14. Common Saint John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) 15. Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) 16. Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) 17. Morrow’s Honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowii) 18. Water Purslane (Ludwigia palustris) 19. Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) 20. Liverworts (Marchantiophyta family) 21. Wild / False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum) 22. Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia) 23. Blackberry Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) 24. Goldenrod (Solidago) 25. Prickly Sow-Thistle (Sonchus asper) 26. White Vervain (Verbena urticifolia) |
Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara)
Bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara) is not the same as deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna). Both are named nightshades, as they both belong to the Solanaceae or nightshade family, both are poisonous (although the latter is far more so), despite both having long medicinal histories, and, at first glance, they share some similar features like variably teardrop-shaped leaves that can lobe at the stem side, striking, typically purple flowers, and having preferences for shadier, moister soils. However, they belong to different genera, have different growth habits (the bittersweet is more vining; the deadly is more shrub-like), flower shapes (the former’s are distinct star-shapes whose petals age to a bending backward, fully revealing brilliant yellow stamens and style; the latter’s are a forward leaning bell shape), and fruit (the former has smaller, bright red ripe berries, which are bitter, but enjoyed by blackbirds, thrushes, robins, and other birds; the latter has half-inch green berries that ripen to a gleaming black—the latter are also sweet, unfortunately, for both plants, and notably their berries, are |
very poisonous).* Another confusion can be between bittersweet nightshade and the common or black nightshade (Solanum ptycanthum), whose flowers look very similar, except that the latter’s are very pale lavender to white; further, the common/black nightshade is thusly named for the color of its deep black berries, versus bittersweet’s green-to-red ones, and is a more erectly growing plant, rather than bittersweet’s vining nature.**
So, let us look closer now at bittersweet nightshade. Its most common common name—bittersweet nightshade—comes to us as a translation of Dulcis amara, literally ‘sweet bitter,’ which it was called in Germany in the 16th century, that described how its stem, upon first taste, was sweet, then most bitter, due to the plant’s chemistry, its glycoalkaloid content dangerously breaking down into steroidal alkamine aglycones. Beyond that name, and its sometimes (and misleading) appellation of ‘deadly’ nightshade, it bears a great number more of common names, including: climbing nightshade, blue bindweed, blue |
False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum, previously Smilacina racemosa)
Please don’t think I am making a moral judgment by calling you false Solomon’s seal—for you and (true?) Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum, e.g., smooth P. biflorum or hairy P. pubescens) are both in the Liliaceae family (although different genera), enjoy similar growing habitats and conditions, bear resemblance to one another (although your flowers are somewhat feathery plumes at the ends of your stem, whereas the other holds hers like small bells tracing the stem’s underside), and were often used medicinally in the same ways. Solomon’s seal received her name by the scar her stems leave on her rhizome when they die back in the fall; your stems do leave a scar, too, but more of a simple circle, instead on one with an interior wax-seal-like marking. So, if you prefer, we could call you by your other common name, Solomon’s plume, or perhaps we just need to find a legendary wise person whose signatory seal was empty, perhaps a Zen master, or a minimalist, a Beckett or Sam Francis? Better, let us just get to know you for who you are truly. You are a native perennial who prefers moist, shady |