Family Solanaceae (Tomato Family).
Also called Bittersweet, Scarletberry, Deadly Nightshade, and a large number of other names. This is not the Deadly Nightshade that was such a favorite in the Borgias’ kitchen garden; that plant was Atropa belladonna, an even more poisonous relative. This has attractive little purple flowers and bright red berries; it’s a rank and weedy vine that runs riot in hedges and on banks. Here we see a bumblebee (Bombus beeus) coming in for a landing on a plant that grew along a fence in Beechview, where it was blooming in early August.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
SOLANUM [Tourn.] L. NIGHTSHADE. Calyx and
wheel-shaped corolla 6-parted or 5-cleft (rarely
4-10-parted), the latter plaited in the bud, and
valvate or inriuplicate. Stamens exserted; filaments
very short; anthers converging around the style,
opening at the tip by two pores or chinks. Berry
usually 2-celled. Herbs, or shrubs in warm climates,
the larger leaves often accompanied by a smaller
lateral (rameal) one; the peduncles also mostly
lateral and extra-axillary. — A vast genus, chiefly in
warmer regions. (Name of unknown derivation.)
Not prickly; anthers blunt; flowers and globose naked
berries small.
Perennial, climbing or twining.
S. dulcamara L. (BITTERSWEET.) More or less
pubescent; leaves dvate-heart-shaped, the upper
haiberd-ehaped, or with 2 ear-like lobes or leaflets
at base; flowers (purple or blue) in small cymes;
berries ovoid, red. — Moist banks and around
dwellings. June-Sept. (Nat. from Eu.)
In Wild Flowers East of the Rockies (1910), Chester Albert Reed gives us this description:
BITTERSWEET; NIGHTSHADE (Solanum Dulcamara) (EUROPEAN), although an immigrant, is quite common in the eastern half of our country. It chooses for its habitat, moist thickets or the edges of ponds where there are plenty of shrubs to help support it, for this species has weak stems with climbing tendencies.
It is a species that often attracts the attention of the casual passerby because of the beauty and quaint forms of its flowers and leaves. It grows from 2 to 8 feet tall and throws out numerous, long branches that climb and sprawl over the surrounding vegetation. The dark green leaves are variable in form; some are lobed, others have small lateral leaflets and still others have another pair of still smaller leaflets on the leaf stem. The flowers hang in loose clusters on long peduncles from the axils of the leaves; they have five, reflexed, purple petals and a yellow, conical center formed by the stamens. The berries that succeed the flowers are first green, then turn yellow and ultimately a deep ruby-red. This species blooms from June until September and, like most plants with a long period of bloom, we may often find flowers and berries in all stages of color at the same time.