This is either Circaea lutetiana or Circaea canadensis or Circaea lutetiana ssp. canadensis. Many botanists recognize a native American species, Circaea canadensis, which may be the one we find in our area; but the USDA PLANTS Database so far does not recognize it, so we provisionally identify these as C. lutetiana.
Photographed June 20.Enchanter’s Nightshade has a longstanding reputation as a sorcerer’s plant, and indeed plants may have been brought from Europe for that purpose, meaning that the species situation may be even more confused. Modern magic-supply houses often sell the seeds.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
CIRCAEA [Tourn.] L. ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE
Calyx-tube slightly prolonged, the end filled by a
cup-shaped disk, deciduous; lobes 2, reflexed. Fruit
indehiscent, small and bur-like, bristly with hooked
hairs, 1-2-celled; cells 1-seeded. —Low perennials,
with opposite leaves on slender petioles, and small
whitish flowers in racemes, produced in summer. (Named
for Circe, the enchantress.)
C. lutetiana L. Tall (3-9 dm. high); leaves ovate, tending to ovate-oblong, mostly rounded at the base, of rather firm texture, slightly toothed; 7 bracts none; hairs of the roundish pyriform 2-celled fruit bristle-like (rarely wanting). Common in dry open woods, N. S. to Ont., and southw. (Eu.)
