Folklore Friday: Bittersweet Nightshade
plus, last day to sign up for Follow the Deer
Hello, friends! This is the second to last poisonous plant poem for 2024’s Folklore Fridays. Eventually I’ll organize my Substack so that my posts will be easy to find by subject (fingers crossed), should you want to look back over this year’s Folklore Fridays. But for now here is one I wrote about contrary little sunshine death flowers.
I was today years old (ish) when I learned that bittersweet nightshade and deadly nightshade are two different plants!
Follow me for more plant information.
Apparently there’s also a wonderberry, which looks similar to deadly nightshade and is edible. How confusing is that?
Deadly nightshade, also known as the romantic-sounding belladonna, has black berries and bell-shaped, dark purple flowers, in contrast to bittersweet nightshade’s pointed, five-petalled flowers and rounded berries that ripen from green to red.
While it seems belladonna is might be a more popular plant, today’s acrostic poem is for the slightly less toxic bittersweet nightshade, or Solanum dulcamara. Sometimes called woody nightshade, they have been used to make everything from potions to dyes. Much of their folklore centers around witchcraft.
Bittersweet nightshade isn’t native here in the U.S. and was introduced in the 18oo’s. Check out this blog post for a bit more information about this fascinating plant.
If I ever come across bittersweet nightshade or anything like it, I think I’ll stick to writing poems rather than trying to decide if it’s one I can eat or not.
Bittersweet
Berries dried
in sachets
the leaves mixed in
to keep nightmares away.
Red beads
in amongst the purple:
evil eye begone,
restore my broken heart.
Shades of night,
woody omens of
encroaching change,
especially near
the home.
© Stephanie Ascough
See you over the orchard wall, friends.
Reminder: today at midnight ET is the last day to sign up for Follow the Deer, a cozy, low-demand writing retreat on December 2nd-6th! It will be an email format. $25-$35 sliding scale.
Note: I’d said this was open to US and UK residents, but it’s open to anyone who’d like to participate.
Read the post here: Follow the Deer, Again
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Your poem is beautiful! And I'm intrigued to learn more about wonder berries. I knew the difference between deadly nightshade and bittersweet nightshade but had never heard of wonder berries. What a delightful name!
This is the first time I've heard of wonder berries. What a great name!