Climbing Nightshade

Climbing Nightshade
Solanum dulcamara

This plant is more commonly called Bittersweet Nightshade. For some reason, the Plants database chose the more boring name this time.

The flower has my old high school team colors, purple & gold, which is very pleasing to my eye. They look like little Shooting Star flowers.

The berries of the plant start out bright green, then change to bright red and look quite tempting, but they are poisonous. This plant is in the same genus as tomatoes and potatoes, which is part of the reason that tomatoes were thought to be poisonous for many years. In fact, the only part of the tomato plant that is not poisonous is the tomato.



The plant is a small, somewhat viney plant that can be erect but usually leans up against something.