Bittersweet Nightshade
Solanum dulcamara
In July 2010, a letter in a newspaper caught my eye, as things botanical usually do. The subject was bittersweet nightshade, a climbing vine with small but beautiful flowers designed like a hurtling missile. The five swept-back rich purple petals and the nose cone of yellow anthers that meet in a sharp point sponsors my aeronautical imagery. Alexander Calder would have drooled over the balanced poise of their bright red berries in a green cup, gracefully suspended like carmine teardrops on a bronze wire.
Others do not see them quite like that but as an unwanted weed with "extremely poisonous" fruit; which appears to be the view of our letter writer. He was drawing attention to an evergreen hedge that was carrying a heavy crop of Bittersweet Nightshade, Solanum dulcamara. He suggested that the owner or the Parks department should remove them for the safety of the children going to a nearby school. He deserves credit for his concern but he knows and I know, as we have all known for generations that the berries are not poisonous.
Why do we persist in perpetuating these suburban myths ?
The newspaper editor went on the Internet to check and sure enough they were deemed to be toxic and very dangerous to children. How valuable and convenient the Blogosphere has become. You now merely have to search for an answer: find one that you like: and go with that.
If the berries are "extremely poisonous" as he asserts, a letter is a rather slow response. Should he not have summoned police, fire and ambulance or at least had the area cordoned off with yellow tape?
My strongest argument for believing that the fruits are harmless (apart from my own public consumption as I display just how smart I am) is the total absence in our parks and playgrounds of dead and dying toddlers.
An American professor of botany was lecturing on the Nightshade family which includes Tomato, Potato and Green Peppers among 3000 species world-wide. In this talk he was addressing those that can be found growing wild in the countryside such as Bittersweet Nightshade. He told his pupils that the fruit and foliage of Black Nightshade were poisonous. The flowers are white but the berries are black. A young man from Iowa spoke up and said that his family and their neighbours ate the fruit of Black Nightshade all the time. The teacher said he must be wrong as they are well-known 'to be poisonous to humans'. It is a credit to the teacher that he tells this story against himself as he later identifies the species and the truth of the mans' claim. The berries were enjoyed not only in Iowa but in Nebraska where they also used the 'dreaded' foliage like spinach ! Back to the chalkboard.
The Royal Horticultural Society (of all people) makes the same error in Index of Garden Plants where they describe Solanum dulcamara as highly toxic and call it Deadly Nightshade. The RHS is in error but I cannot blame people that quote such an esteemed source.
I too was told that Solanum dulcamara was poisonous and to avoid it or rip it out whenever I saw it. "Make sure you are completely covered in case the sap touches any bare skin." was my grandmother's warning. It is such a beautiful flower that it always bothered me to pull them but left to there own devices they easily multiplied to I would pull them whenever it was found growing along the fence. Thank you for this informative blog and for such a wealth of refreshing knowledge.
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