American Bittersweet

American bittersweet is a sturdy woody vine of the family Celastraceae, found wild across central and eastern North America, where it grows on rich, well-drained woodland soils and flowers mostly in June. Its twining stems can pass thirty feet in length and an inch in thickness at the base, and they coil so tightly round young trees that they can choke them. The tiny flowers have no scent. In autumn come pea-sized fruits, red berries framed by yellow-orange petals, which birds relish but which are poisonous to people. Colonists named it bittersweet in the eighteenth century because its fruit looked like that of the European nightshade of the same name, and the word American now marks it off from its invasive Asian relative, Oriental bittersweet. Native Americans and settlers took the root to bring on vomiting and against venereal disease and the symptoms of tuberculosis, and it was winter food for the Menominee, Ojibwe and Potawatomi when supplies ran short. It is grown today in gardens and for seasonal flower arrangements. In magic a small piece tied on the body is said to shield people and animals from evil and draw it out of them, and a sprig under the pillow helps one forget an old love.